HOME OPENER TOMORROW! Fever Week(end) begins!

Game 1 WNBA Preview - Game 2 WNBA Preview

It's on!

Ok, if you ask players on either side of the Chicago-Indianapolis rivalry, you might just get a laugh.

The two teams met twice in the preseason, primarily out of convenience, and face-off twice more this weekend in a back-to-back away-and-home series ending Sunday night at Conseco Fieldhouse. Fever guard Briann January writes in her blog -

I’m excited to head back to Chicago. Again, for like the tenth time this month we play them.

The two teams split the preseason, but that was without four Fever starters.

You would think with a week downtime since losing their first two games, the Eastern Conference Championship Fever should be in gear to take out vicious Kobe-esque revenge on the Chicago Sky.

In this preview, I, with the help of Audrey at Chicago Sky Hoops, review the upcoming back-to-back weekend between the 0-2 Indiana Fever and 0-2 Chicago Sky.  In a bit, I should have audio with Katie Douglas, Ebony Hoffman and Tammy Sutton-Brown about their exploits in Turkey and how they've spent this week getting ready to win some games.

What's going on with the 0-2 Indiana Fever?

Fever media day - More The Indianapolis Star Galleries View this gallery at The Indianapolis Star: Fever media day

For a lot of reasons, I don't expect to see a "SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!" this weekend.

In particular, I think it will take more time for the Fever to get back into gear. If it were just jet-lag, the week of downtime might have been enough, especially for a conference championship team that brought back 9 of 11 players.

Jet-lag grossly understates the intensity of the past five month grind on the players, playing overseas in a very physical and prolonged title run in Turkey. As a result, the team just hasn't had enough time to take care of all the personal things they might need to, coming back from such a long haul, nor had enough time to refresh themselves on the Indy Fever playbook, get used to each other again and get used to WNBA rules (travels good! moving screens, bad!).

Also giving the veteran nature of the team with the starters all north of 30, Catchings' past injuries, the important thing at this early stage in the season is that they play efficiently irrespective of wins and losses. The most important thing for this team is to allow it's veterans the chance to decompress some and ease into the season. It would be disastrous to expect them to maintain that playoff intensity of the past month and hold it through to the playoffs. Instead, as this team often receives comparisons to the San Antonio Spurs, the team should continue to work on its efficiency, get it's stars some rest and be healthy and ready in August to reclaim their conference championship from whichever seed they gets in as. As such, the Fever have concentrated on their fundamentals this week and on getting back to Fever basketball. Compared to the opener games last week, the Fever expect to be more aggressive, less tentative and to reduce their turnovers as they get used to playing WNBA together again.

What's going on with the 0-2 Chicago Sky?

To help me with this preview, I asked longtime blogger Audrey of Chicago Sky Hoops a few questions.

[1] Michelle Voepel has you guys in the cellar.

6. Chicago: The Sky had the best record of their four seasons in the WNBA last year at 16-18. This summer, the Sky move to Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., and leading scorer Candice Dupree is no longer with the team; she was traded to Phoenix, and the deal brought New York's Shameka Christon to the Sky. Key questions are whether Sylvia Fowles, who has battled injuries, can stay relatively healthy for a whole season, and whether rookie Epiphanny Prince can be an immediately effective scorer.

Do you expect the Sky to play better this year than last year? What's your early read on Shameka Christon and Epiphanny Prince? How's Sylvia's health?

[1] The eastern conference is so unpredictable, I have no idea where to put us. Everyone has the Fever winning the east, but after that...who knows! With that said, I definitely expect the Sky to be better this year than last year. Our roster is much more balanced. Instead of having two dominant posts and a relatively weak perimeter as we've had in years past, now we have a solid post rotation as well as a solid guard rotation. As long as the pieces can gel, we should be a really strong team. But, even though we'll likely be a better team, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll finish with a better record or make the playoffs cuz it seems like everyone in the east got better.

So far, I've really liked Epiphanny Prince. Her defensive intensity is always high, she has quick hands and plays the passing lanes well. So far, she has focused more on her PG duties and less on scoring. Logically, that's probably a good thing. We need her to continue to develop her PG skills if this team is going to do any real damage in the near future. On the other hand, knowing that she is such a prolific scorer, I'd love to see her look for her shot a bit more. I'd love to see what she can do offensively when the reigns are taken off, ya know? I guess the 'rook is just gonna have to wait her turn. Overall, Prince is a stellar addition to this team and I think her learning curve is pretty steep. She might not be blowing anyone away right now, but she's gonna get better and better every game.

The Sky have never had a dominant SF before. For the entire existence of this franchise, this has been the weakest spot for us. The first couple years it was Stacey Dales. Then Brooke Wykcoff. Then Armintie Price. At times we would just stop trying to fill that SF spot with an actual SF and just play three guards...or move a PF to the SF spot. Shyra Ely did this for us in '09 and did a great job. At the end of last season we got Tamera Young. This PF carousel has been going on for 4 seasons. We never had a solid SF and now we have an allstar SF. Shameka Christon is an absolute anomaly to me. I don't even know what to expect from that spot in our offense. Thus far, Christon really hasn't "wowed" us, but I think she's battling a nagging injury and it'll likely just take some time for her get acclimated to the system. Heck, perhaps Key doesn't even know what to do with a SF cuz we've never really had a great one before!

Ugh, Big Syl's health. The achilles heal of the Sky and Sky fans. On a positive note, Fowles looked really good in the NY game. She looked healthy. The problem is, she's so athletic and gets up so high for boards, for blocks and for shots and doesn't really have great body control. She does this super athletic stuff in traffic in the lane. It's just a matter of time before she lands awkwardly or lands on someone else's foot or something. During the home preseason game vs. Indy, she literally tweaked her knee three different times during that game. THREE TIMES IN ONE GAME! She landed awkardly three times and was grabbing and rubbing her knee (...and limping) on three separate occasions. I try to be positive regarding Big Syl, but, honestly, I have absolutely NO CONFIDENCE in her whatsoever. Her injuries have already killed two seasons for us.

[2] The Sky are 0-2. Why does the Chicago Sky stink so bad? =D

[2] You know what, I didn't see that first game vs. Connecticut. I looked at the box score and that was enough. Looked like the Sky just laid an egg in that game. Offensively, defensively...I have no idea. With regards to the NY game, the Sky simply had too many defensive lapses (c'mon Taj with 20 pts!) and too many stretches where they got very, very careless with the basketball for multiple plays in a row. Our turnovers came in bunches. At times we'd play under control and at other times we would play frantic and careless. We played well when Erin Thorn was on the court to direct traffic and calm everyone down. Big Syl looked MUCH improved on offense but looked lost/uninterested on defense (again...Taj with 20 pts!). Oh, and we have perfected the art of the "3rd Quarter Meltdown." Third quarters have been rough for us for, oh, 5 seasons now. But overall, the Sky looked good in the NY game. They looked like a team that had all the pieces but had yet to put all the pieces together to form the picture.

[3] Your last win was against... the Fever! Should I be concerned that you'll sweep the home-and-away this weekend?

[3] Yes, be concerned...very concerned! We 'gon SWEEEEP! Ignore the fact that we're 4-11 all-time vs. the Fever and that the past four years we've gone 1-3, 1-3, 1-2 and 1-3 vs. you guys. Hmmm...looks like we can only beat you guys once per season. So, yeah, maybe you don't have to worry about the sweep after all! But seriously, that Fever win in '09 was one of the greatest games in Sky history. The arena was absolutely eLeCtRiC and I seriously thought we were definitely playoff-bound after that win. Toliver won that game for us (Game Notes: Sky 86, Fever 79 ). She absolutely LIT YA'LL UP! ...uh, I guess you don't have to worry about that this time around though!

[4] The Chicago Sky went 16-18 last season. What do you like to do when the Sky lose? How do you deal with loss?

[4] The Sky played GREAT at the Pavillion last year. The home crowd was treated to several amazing, down-to-the-wire home wins. Most of the Sky's bad losses came on the road. Unfortunately/fortunately, due to the wonders of LiveAccess, we were actually able to see our team play on the road last year. And let me tell you this: Sky fans are a tough crowd. Whenever the Sky lose, everyone gets an attitude. Everyone blames the coach. Everyone wants the coach fired. Everyone complains that their favorite player didn't get enough minutes. Everyone complains about everything. Actually, we do the same thing even when the Sky win! For me personally, I don't take every loss badly. I try to keep focused on the big picture -- finishing .500 (or above) and making the playoffs. When we lost to Detroit in the final game of the season in '09 (killing our playoff chances and finishing a game below .500), I was crushed. Worst. Sky. Moment. Ever.

Thanks a lot Audrey for the Chicago Sky view!