Thursday Cardinal Couple -- WNBA Playoff time !

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE ( EIGHT TEAMS WILL BEGIN BATTLE STARTING TONIGHT TO  ADVANCE IN THE POST-SEASON WNBA PLAYOFFS. GARY WITHERSPOON  LOOKS AT ATLANTA'S QUEST TO RETURN TO THE FINALS.) - Angel, Shoni and Atlanta “Limp” into the Playoffs The Atlanta Dream begin their playoff run on Friday, August 22, 7 PM at home against the Chicago Sky on NBA TV. Even though the Dream finished the season as the regular season champions of the  Eastern Conference and the only team in the Eastern Conference  with a winning record, there does not seem to be any reason for confidence that the Dream will have a long playoff run.  It could be as short as two games, and it could last as long as  11 games. The WNBA starts with two out of three playoff series, and Chicago is anything but a pushover. For the first time during the whole season, Chicago has all of their players ready to go for the playoffs. During the season, they have missed All-Stars Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles  each for about half of the season, and starters Coutney Vandersloot and Epiphanny Prince have also missed a substantial number of games. In their places, Jessica Breland, Allie Quigley and Jamierra Faulkner have played extremely well in both starting roles and roles off the bench, so the Sky are loaded and ready to go for the playoffs. To add to the concern, even with an injury plagued season, Chicago won two and lost two in their regular season series with the Dream, with each  team winning one and losing one on their home courts. The Dream lost 11 out of their last 15 games, including getting trounced by a young Connecticut team 84-55 in their last game of  the season on Sunday, August 17. The biggest issue seems to be  the play of their two big stars Angel McCoughtry (18.5 ppg) and Erika de Souza (13.5 ppg). Until the latter part of the season, this had been De Souza best season, but her points and rebounds have taken a nose dive in the last 15 games.  Angel has averaged “only” 15.3 ppg over the last 10 games of the season. Angel’s last outstanding game occurred just before the Dream’s western swing when she scored 28 points against NY. She started the western swing with19 against Phoenix, but she got hurt in the second half and did not play well the rest of the trip.  After sitting out two games, Angel has started to play well in limited  time in their last two games. After the All-Star game Shoni had an excellent 17 point OT effort at Minnesota in front of 4-5000 adoring Shoni  fans. Then she went through a series of four games in which she never played more than15 minutes and scored a total of 7 points,  going scoreless in two of those games. Starting with the Dream’s  four game western swing in Phoenix where Shoni had somewhere  between 5-7000 fans, Shoni started a 6 game streak in which she averaged 15.2 points a game, highlighted by a 24 point and 9 assists effort at home against Phoenix when Atlanta beat Phoenix  96-82 sparked by Shoni’s 20 point 2nd quarter outburst. Phoenix  finished the season with a WNBA record 29 wins in 34 games.  Shoni would have entered the playoffs on a roll except for a 9 point  performance at Connecticut in which she went 3-12. As a new fan of the Dream, I have a lot of apprehension about their playoff prospects based on their recent performances, but older fans of the Dream indicate this is par for the course and do not seem concerned. When you realize  that all four Eastern playoff teams enter the playoffs with a loss in  their last game, and Chicago (the Dream’s first opponent) enters the playoffs with two losses, there is plenty of room for optimism  and pessimism. Apparently the veteran pro players can turn it on  whenthey need to do so. It might be relevant to note that the Dream  have lost to and defeated every team in the playoffs in both conferences except for San Antonio with whom they won both games in the season series. gw .

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