Kathy Goodman: Grading on a curve
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When I was in law school, I always benefited from the fact that our exams were graded on a curve — it didn’t matter what you knew, as long as you knew more than the other people sitting in the room with you. It is the same thing with trying to make the post-season in the WNBA. You don’t have to be good — you just have to be better than the teams in your conference. Notwithstanding the fact that I live and die by the belief that, in the 2009 Sparks, Penny Toler has put together the greatest team of individual talent ever assembled on a women’s pro basketball team (Rebkell, begin your discussion now), all I want right now is for us to have the fourth best record in the West so we can advance to the playoffs.
In our last three home games, we have beaten the team with the best record in the entire league (Indiana), and then lost to the team with the worst record in the East (New York), followed by losing to the team with the worst record in the West (Sacramento.) I drove up from L.A. to Sacramento for tonight’s game against the Monarchs and so had a lot of time to think about what the outcome of tonight’s game might be. Because I know life is graded on a curve, I logged onto WNBA.com to figure out who else was playing tonight. I e-mailed my co-owner Carla that all that needed to happen was that Seattle had to lose to Atlanta, Chicago had to beat Minnesota and Phoenix had to beat San Antonio to put us in the playoff contention. Oh, and we had to win. We had to beat a team that beat us less than 24 hours ago. On our home court.
Three of those four things happened.
I was in the elevator of my hotel riding down to the lobby with my parents to head out to the game. “What do you think?” my mother asked. “We got this,” my father confidently predicted. “We’ve already won.” I wasn’t so sure, and I couldn’t decide if my father’s statement was a premonition or a curse.
I like Arco Arena. I like the rivalry between L.A. and Sacramento that transcends any particular game, any particular league, any particular sport. I think people in Sacramento wonder why Angelenos think they’re anything when Sacramento is the Capitol of California, and I think Angelenos wonder why Sacramento is the Capitol of California. This manifests itself in the WNBA through a big and loud crowd in Arco chanting “Beat L.A..” Tonight was no different.
I am going to admit it. I was not as confident as my father. I had watched Friday night, when we lost energy and focus, and let an important game slide away from us. I felt like the blogs I have written for the past three weeks have alternated between, “OK, the real Sparks are back — this is what we have been waiting for!” and “did we really just lose…again? To that team?!” I talked to a couple of Sparks season ticket holders in Arco when I got there and they looked at me expectantly and said, “Well…” I told them I was out of the predicting business and we were just going to see how everything unfolded. Then I took my seat to see how everything was going to unfold.
The first five minutes were inconclusive. The lead changed six times and it seemed to me it was going to be a close one. Candace scored 10 of the Sparks’ first 13 points, but also was tagged with three of the Sparks five turnovers in that time. What I didn’t know was that the game was over in those first five minutes. The Sparks had come to play and they were not leaving Arco without a win. At the end of the quarter, we were up by four and my father said, “If we just do that every quarter, we’ll win the game.” I responded that if we just lost each remaining quarter by no more than one, we would win the game. My father was closer to being right.
By the end of the 40 minutes, we had shot 56.6%, had beaten the Monarchs in 3 of the 4 quarters (losing the last 10 minutes to Sac by 1 point), out-rebounded Sacramento, and had five more assists and blocks. More importantly, at the end of 40 minutes, four of our players were in double-digit scoring (Delisha, Lisa, Candace and Noelle) with Tina right behind with 9 points and we had not looked better all season with the possible exception of our home opener. Most importantly, at the end of 40 minutes of play, we had 78 points and the Monarchs had 61.
Sacramento, for its part, had three players in double digits, with Nicole Powell scoring 20, and they tied their season high in steals. Rebekkah Brunson grabbed a season high 11 rebounds and the Monarchs’ assists did not exceed their turnovers. But being good was not enough. They had to be better than the other people in the room. Tonight, the Sparks were the other people in the room. Curiously, they were not Friday night’s Sparks. They were a new team (or perhaps the team they had been at the home opener), filled with focus and determination.
San Antonio beat Phoenix tonight, but Atlanta beat Seattle, and Chicago beat Minnesota. And we beat Sacramento. We don’t have to be good. We just have to be better than the other people in the room. Tonight we were good. Let’s see if we can stay better than the other people in the room next week.
-- Kathy Goodman
Goodman is co-owner of the Sparks.