But, yeah, for this game right here, I don’t really look, I’m not worried. I’m not worried about the Indiana Fever. There are things that I’m worried about, but I think a lot of my worries with this Fever team can be kind of calmed down by saying Aliyah Boston’s coming back. The Dallas Wings played this game like it was a regular season game up to a point.
Through 25 minutes, the Dallas Wings played this game like it was a regular season game. The Indiana Fever played this game like this was a preseason game. The Dallas Wings, you could see it in the foul count. The refs are very clearly changing how they’re refereeing the game. In every game, if you watch every single game, you’re no longer allowed to grab somebody off the ball. That is a thing, and the Dallas Wings came out being physical. They came out being physical, they came out being tough, and they stopped the Indiana Fever really doing anything. The Indiana Fever ran no sets. They ran no defensive actions. They literally allowed the Wings to get everything they wanted.
And this is a team that is coached on the defensive end by Briann January. This is a team who we’ve seen it in practice. What they want to do is cause chaos on defense. They want to scramble on high ball screens. They want to refuse screens and force long passes. They want to cause chaos on defense. Today, we saw the Indiana Fever — I mean, this is how the Indiana Fever played screens today.
Did they play hedge and recover? Nope. Did they play switching? Nope. Did they play blitzing? Nope. They played Kristy Sides running to the screen defense. The help defense was nonexistent. I don’t know if it was by design or not. But the help defense was literally nonexistent.
This version of Indiana Fever’s defense will not be there. The Dallas Wings either had an open three or an open layup every single possession. This version of the Indiana Fever’s defense is not something that we expect to see in the first regular season game. It is what it is, but we don’t expect to see it. And we saw it with the Wings where it’s like Aliyah Boston was getting cooked on the defensive end.
And the Indiana Fever just didn’t go to anything else. The difference is that whether it was Shekinna Walker-Kimbrough or they did it for Caitlin for a while, they just went out with a “we’re going to punish the worst defender” mindset. That is what the Wings went out to do. And the Fever were like, “We’re not even going to try to run anything to stop you from that. We’re not even going to try to take you out of that offense.” If you want to just go ISO, cool. You’re not going to get this next week.
Minutes-wise, again, Paige Bueckers played 20 of the first 23 minutes. She played 20 of the first 23 minutes. They took this game seriously. In preseason, Paige got a start. I think Paige made a shot and she’s there screaming like she’d won the finals. This was one of those things where I’m like, look, the Dallas Wings had — when it came to Paige — they took this really seriously.
It was the first game under Jose Fernandez. You had Aliyah Boston there. It was her first game. It’s in Indiana. There’s a semi-big crowd for preseason of 11,000. And they wanted that game. Whereas the Indiana Fever made no adjustments, ran no sets, were perfectly willing to let the Dallas Wings do whatever they wanted, and they made no attempts to stop them.
The Dallas Wings didn’t really run anything. The Fever just didn’t show their hand. The Fever’s effort was preseason effort. The Wings’ effort was regular season effort. It’s kind of as simple as that. When it went to bench vs bench, it was what it was, but you could see Aziaha James plays 31 minutes. Myisha Hines-Allen starts and plays 29 minutes in a preseason game.
The Indiana Fever’s minutes were led by Monique Billings, who they just kept on the floor because she was stinking it up so badly that they wanted to see what could happen. It was one of the worst performances I’d seen.
One thing I’d be okay about with the Fever is that the way the referees are reffing these games, Caitlin Clark is going to live on the free throw line. She’s going to live at the free throw line. She might shoot 10 free throws a game. The way they’re calling stuff right now, she could shoot 10 free throws a game.
I think Myisha Hines-Allen is genuinely a positive backup big. That is what she is. She is a good backup big. The problem is that she might end up being the starting power forward, which nobody wants to see. But she might be better than Monique Billings.
Monique Billings — that is the one concern I had in this game. There’s two concerns. Damiris Dantas looks like she’s still Damiris Dantas from last year, which is like the worst power forward and the worst big in the league. She was one of the worst players in the league to play significant minutes for a playoff team. She was genuinely one of the worst players that played, and she looks even worse. She looks even worse right now.
Kalani Brown’s available, and she’ll play for a minimum. Kalani Brown is available. At least Kalani Brown is 6’7″ and big. I don’t think she’s spectacular. She’s big. She does something. Dantas — I don’t even know if she’s trying. She gave them five offensive rebounds by staring at the ball. Literally, I counted she gave five by staring at the ball.
Another real positive was Mikayla Timpson. I was all in on Kiki last year, then all out on Kiki watching her overseas. This is a new player. This is not the Michaela Timpson that played in Prague. This is not the same human being. She could start. She could push her way into the starting spot. The awareness of Kiki is improving so much.
And by the way, if Kiki Timpson is starting at the four, you’re pretty set. But Shekinna Walker-Kimbrough defensively got cooked, while Kianna Smith hit shots. Megan McConnell just ran around and tried.
I really don’t like Jessica Timmons. I really don’t like Jessica Timmons. The problem with Timmons is she has to take four dribbles before she makes a decision. She gets the ball and it’s bang dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble. I’m like, you should not need four dribbles to move a foot and a half. It should not take you four dribbles. And that’s something that’s really hard to coach out of somebody.
But yeah, Trainer, I thought, had a good game. Again, it’s very different playing against Teaira McCowan, Lindsay Allen, Grace Berger than it is playing against the starters.
But yeah. It is what it is.
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