Kathy Goodman: What is it with Atlanta?

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The 2008 WNBA season was winding down. The addition of rookie Candace Parker and the return of Lisa Leslie from maternity leave allowed the Sparks to rebound from a relatively disastrous 2007 season which had seen us sit out the postseason for the first time in nine years.

As we headed into the final games of the season, we had clinched a postseason berth, but were looking to improve our seeding. Things looked promising. We had two games left and one of them was against the Atlanta Dream, an expansion team that had won only three games all season. We all had that one listed in our “win” column to take into the postseason with us. Atlanta apparently had not gotten the memo. They beat us on our floor, to record their fourth and final win of the 2008 season. What is it with Atlanta?

Here we are, five games away from the end of the 2009 regular season. We haven’t clinched our spot yet, but going into Tuesday’s game, we only needed two wins to get us there. Atlanta is not last year’s team — they are second in the Eastern Conference and came into the game with five times as many wins as they had last season. Nevertheless, their leading scorer from 2008, Betty Lennox, was now sitting on our bench and their leading scorer from this season, Chamique Holdsclaw, was out recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. We had this one in the win column. Again, it seems as though Atlanta didn’t get the memo.

I looked at the box score from Tuesday’s game, and it took me a while to sort out what exactly happened, even though I watched every minute of the game. Parker ended up with another double-double, scoring 15 points and grabbing 14 rebounds. Leslie showed again why she could continue playing in this league for as long as she wanted to, scoring 24 points, six rebounds, three blocks and two steals. Tina Thompson shot 67%, and was two of four for three. Our field goal percentage was higher than Atlanta’s; we had more rebounds, more assists and more blocks. We had more of just about everything other than points. What is it about the Atlanta Dream that gets us so frustrated?

We had 16 turnovers, which turned into 14 Atlanta points. Atlanta had seven turnovers. Even though we outscored them in the paint, 50-36, they killed us on the offensive boards, getting 20 second-chance points to our 11. Atlanta had twice as many steals as we did and we gave them the chance to shoot 28 free throws, but only got to the line 10 times ourselves. In the end, it was simple — they took better care of the ball; they got the rebounds that mattered, and their bench outscored our bench, 32-11.

We did some good things in the game Tuesday night. We limited rookie Angel McCoughtry to just six points, half her per-game average, and Erika de Souza to just five, less than half her average. We had some great passing, and eight of our 10 players recorded at least one assist. We took the ball hard inside, getting 63% of our points in the paint. But this was not the same team that played on Sunday night. That Sparks team was fluid and graceful. They assisted on almost every made basket and our starting five combined for only four turnovers all game. Tuesday, they combined for 14 of our 16 turnovers. We were out of rhythm, out of sync with each other.

I was unhappy when Phoenix beat us last week, but I knew we weren’t full strength, with Parker out, so I took it in stride. We are still missing Kristi Harrower, whom we expect back shortly, but otherwise, this is our team. We had beaten Atlanta a week ago in Atlanta. We all had this one penciled in the win column. But just like the end of 2008, Atlanta had our number. What is it with Atlanta?

-- Kathy Goodman

Goodman is co-owner of the Sparks.