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Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone. Let’s get caught up with the main storylines of the week!
The Mystics will start the WNBA Playoffs at home
The WNBA Playoffs is different than the NBA. First, conferences don’t matter anymore since each team plays each other three times and one other team four times a season. Second, there is a mix of single elimination games before the semifinals which are best of five series.
I’m a little disappointed that the Mystics didn’t win a #3 or #4 seed because it would earn them a first round bye. Their 86-76 loss to the Sun last Tuesday all but sealed their fate in that regard.
The good news however, is that they are going to start the playoffs at home next Wednesday, September 6 at 8 p.m. ET. If the postseason ended today, they would face the Seattle Storm at Capital One Arena in a winner-take-all series.
Speaking of which, the Mystics played and beat the Storm in overtime last Friday with a 110-106 victory. Storm franchise player Sue Bird wins the narrative because she got the WNBA’s career assists record. But from there, Elena Delle Donne scored a season high 37 points and Emma Meesseman chipped in 27 more, 9 of them in overtime to get D.C. the victory they needed.
The Mystics finish the regular season on the road against the Lynx on Sunday. For some fun reading on the Mystics, we made their All-Time teams as their 20th regular season comes to a close.
Tomas Satoransky begins his EuroBasket 2017 journey with the Czech Republic
The Wizards reserve guard hasn’t had the best rookie season, partly because he played out of position as a wing than as a point guard. As the “franchise player” of the Czech Republic, he does get to play his natural position. In their first group play game against Romania, Satoransky got a double double with 20 points and 13 rebounds in a big win where he got to showcase his full skillset. And yes, as one of Europe’s high fliers, he made a big slam dunk as well.
Satoransky’s performance on Friday is a confidence boost for him, but I think it’s also a knock on the Wizards. Why are they trying to showcase his weaknesses (catch and shoot) and only make him work on those instead of letting him play to his strengths (call plays, get open for dunks) more and letting him gradually fill in his gaps? I hope this changes soon.
For more stuff on the Czech Republic’s performance in EuroBasket 2017, please click on our StoryStream.
Rod Strickland Week
Rod Strickland is known as one of the NBA’s “almost there but not quite” players. He scored over 14,000 points and dished almost 8,000 assists in his long NBA career, yet he never played in an NBA Finals or was an All-Star. That said, he did get an All-NBA Second Team mention in the 1997-98 season with the Wizards, where he was from 1996-2001. In this slow news time, we’ve dedicated the past week to him.
Here are the posts:
- We showed some GIF’s of him crossing over Michael Jordan, and make passes that even John Wall would find difficult.
- We pointed out some stats that show Strickland’s unique place in NBA history.
- Strickland was name dropped in a Wu-Tang Clan song.
- He liked to eat hot dogs. I bet the local Costcos (or was it Price Club back then) saw him all the time for those $1.50 deals when you can get a quarter pound hot dog and a soda for that price. It was a good deal then. It’s cheaper than school lunch today!
- And finally, we talked about Strickland’s finest moment as a Wizards player.
Alright, there’s not much else out there this week, but EuroBasket’s going on, the Mystics are about to start their playoff run, and Wizards training camp will start later this month now that we’re in September.
If there’s another link you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments or as a FanPost. Enjoy the long weekends everyone!