Programming Note: The Sky Townies newsletter will be off the next few weeks for the All-Star break and to get some rest. We will be back the week of July 25th.
Watch Party Update: Good news! Our first Sky watch party is scheduled for Sunday August 6th @ 3pm at Whiskey Girl Tavern in Edgewater. Come watch with us!!!! We’re playing the Dallas Wings, we’ll have giveaways and other cool stuff, Skytown unite! I also feel like we should invite Rebekah Gardner to watch with us, but that might be a long shot. Follow us on Twitter (@sky_townies) for updates.
On to the newsletter!
It looked for a moment there like we might be able to throw our How to Cope When Your Team is Losing post in the trash, but nope, we need it again. We’ve lost our last three games, two to the Atlanta Dream and one to the Connecticut Sun, and are going into the All-Star break 8-12.
The Townies have noticed plenty of concerning things during the latest losing stretch, and one that we’ll come back to is our depth. We’re having to play our starters the entire third quarter and then falling apart in the fourth when we’re tired. Sometimes it feels like we just don’t have enough players to compete with the better teams in the WNBA.
The other concern is our offense, which is currently ranked ninth in the league (out of twelve teams). After our KFC Buckets Analysis, one of our associates pointed out that when a team’s star player is having to take more outside shots and scoring less from the paint, it’s usually a sign that the offense isn’t working very well. That’s what we’ll look at today.
We Don’t Get the Ball in the Paint Enough
Probably the thing that all good offenses have in common is that they get the ball into the paint. Getting the ball in the paint allows teams to 1) score at the rim, or 2) forces the defense to collapse to create openings on the perimeter.
One way to get the ball into the paint is to pass the ball to a low-post player, which the Sky rarely do. Instead, our post players come out to set ball screens for our guards (or give them handoffs) so that the guards have space to penetrate. Here lies the problem.
Our guards don’t look to turn the corner aggressively or consistently enough off those screens! (Kah might be the exception). Which is not cool.
A ball screen is a gift, an opportunity for guards to do cool stuff—score at the rim, dump it off to a roller, or kick it out to a shooter. Why not take it?! If I was a post player on the Sky, I wouldn’t even bother going out to set a screen anymore. Or, I’d pretend to set the screen, and then steal the ball from the guard and go do my own thing.
Our Lead Basketball Analyst has a little more sympathy for the Sky guards. She reminds us that, because our post players aren’t viewed as scoring threats from mid-range, or really as major scoring threats at all, defenses can hedge harder on our guards. And like—sure! When the defense hedges, it does indeed make it tougher to get in the paint.
But if it makes it impossible to get in the lane, then we need a new offense, or more realistically, we need new guards.
Before this year started, I wrote that we might have one of the most exciting guard combos in the league: Kahleah Copper, Marina Mabrey, and Courtney Williams. Halfway through the season, I’m not sure that prophecy has materialized. They’ve all done cool things individually: Copper is an All-Star, Williams is fourth in the league in assists, and Mabrey has had flashes of being unstoppable from three-point land.
But do they work well together? The majority of Williams’ assists this season have been to post players. The same is true for Copper. Mabrey has done a good job finding Copper, but more so off of ball-reversals than from penetration.
So not only do the guards need to get into the paint more, they need to do so with each other in mind. Penetrate, kick, and re-penetrate. Right now, our best three-point shooter in Marina Mabrey is having to create too many of her own shots, many of which end up being highly contested. If our guards commit to getting more paint touches, she can get some easier looks off the catch. That’s what the Townies would love to see from our offense after the All-Star break.
And though we were kidding about post players needing to steal the ball from the guards (sort of!), we do think they should be asking for more low-post touches. Elizabeth Williams and Alanna Smith have both been efficient inside an offense that isn’t really designed for them. Time to ask for a tweak.
Correction
You may have noticed that in previous posts we were referring to Elizabeth Williams as Liz Williams. To be honest, I’m not sure where I got that—maybe I heard it on TV, or maybe it was just the basketball player habit of shortening all names into one syllable. Anyways, we were informed that Elizabeth does NOT in fact go by “Liz,” she goes by Elizabeth. So that’s that.
Our next game is Thursday July 20th @ 9p.m. on the road against the Phoenix Mercury.
Also! Come to Whiskey Girl Tavern in Edgewater to watch the Sky take on the Dallas Wings on Sunday August 6th @ 3pm!!! We’d love to see you there.