Let’s just say that Atlanta has experienced mixed results so far this season. On the one hand, you have to give the Dream some credit for being a competitive side after completely overhauling their roster over the winter. On the other, we seem to have a team that presents some intriguing matchup problems, but lacks the on-court chemistry to be a consistent winner (more on that later).
The win over Washington a couple of weeks ago spoke volumes about what this team is capable of. Their disappointing losses at home to Washington and Chicago over the next week showed how far they have to go.
“When things are tough, that’s when a person’s character is developed,” Chamique Holdsclaw said after last week’s disappointing loss to New York, which came on the heels of the big win over the Mystics. “Today things got kind of tough and we had people putting their head down, bickering and complaining.”
Clearly, the chemistry is still coming around.
“That’s what’s going to make a great team, being able to handle success and failure and taking that failure and saying, ‘you know what, next game we’re not going to get outworked,’” Holdsclaw said.
LYNX AWAIT
After garnering a split in back-to-back games against the Connecticut Sun and Detroit Shock last weekend, the Dream are still trying to find that consistency. They’ll try to bottle up their performance in the win over the defending champion Shock and bring the same energy for Tuesday evening’s matchup with the 6-3 Minnesota Lynx. And with a national television audience looking on (the game will be televised on ESPN2), Atlanta will surely want to give a good account of themselves.
As for the Lynx, they suffered a seemingly catastrophic blow when Seimone Augustus was lost for the season 10 days ago. But they have surprised since then, beating New York on June 23 before exploding for 109 points on Saturday against Phoenix.
There is still talent on the team, but the experience level is not what it once was. Second-year players Nicky Anosike, Candace Wiggins and Charde Houston all need to step up and fill the void left by Augustus. That would be a very nice supporting cast if Augustus was healthy, but can any of them step into the role as the go-to player? Wiggins appears most suited for that role, as Anosike and Houston have both struggled mightily on offense since Augustus’s departure.
If the Dream can slow down the undermanned Minnesota offense, you would think things would bode well for them at home. The key to the game could also be in the paint, where Anosike will have to try to hold things down in the post all by her lonesome while head coach Marynell Meadors has the luxury of rotating a multitude of bigs to give the road team trouble.
It should be a good one tonight, and I look forward to seeing all of you at Philips at 7 p.m.
Bagriansky can be reached at jbagriansky@scoreatl.com.
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