Insider Preview - Storm vs. San Antonio

2008 was a banner season for San Antonio. Having added All-Star center Ann Wauters to the core of players that had reached the Western Conference Finals in 2007, the Silver Stars put together the league's best record in the regular season. They then withstood three-game series against Sacramento and Los Angeles (requiring a miraculous buzzer-beater from Sophia Young In Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals) to reach the WNBA Finals for the first time. San Antonio had home-court advantage against Detroit, but got blitzed by the Shock at the AT&T Center in a three-game sweep.

The Silver Stars had a relatively uneventful offseason, getting guard Shanna Crossley back after she missed 2008 with a torn ACL and adding former Mercury wing Belinda Snell as a free agent. San Antonio also brought back backup center Katie Matera (nee Feenstra), who started her career with the Silver Stars.

Despite the limited changes, the San Antonio team that took the floor early in the year bore relatively little resemblance to the Western Conference champs. The European Championships took a toll on the Silver Stars. Wauters, a native of Belgium, made it clear from the start that she would play for her country, part of the reason why she did not play in the WNBA in 2006 or 2007. The Russian National Team also required Hammon to join them for the elimination rounds of the Euros. She missed two games, a situation exacerbated when veteran wing Vickie Johnson also left the team for the same road trip because of a death family and Crossley tore the meniscus in her left knee during the first of the two games.

Predictably, the Silver Stars lost road games at New York and Connecticut, dropping them to 1-3 on the young season. Since then, with Hammon and Johnson back in the lineup, we've seen a more reasonable facsimile of last year's San Antonio squad. The Silver Stars have gone 3-1, playing all four games at home.

Still, San Antonio is facing some issues, especially until Wauters rejoins the team at some point. Her absence has exposed the team's lack of a reliable third option on offense. Johnson once played that role, but at 37 in what she has announced will be her final WNBA season she is averaging a career-low 6.2 points per game. Forward Erin Perperoglou (nee Buescher), a starter throughout 2008, has also struggled in the early going, averaging 2.3 points (down from 7.2 in 2008) and shooting 32.7 percent from the field.

The Silver Stars have gotten a nice boost from Wauters' replacement in the starting lineup (and their starting center in 2007), Ruth Riley. Riley is averaging 9.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game, shooting 61.2 percent from the field. San Antonio's fourth-leading scorer has been Snell, an international star and starter for the Australian National Team who has struggled to translate that success in the WNBA. She's had two huge games - a 21-point explosion that keyed a win over her former team and a 14-point outing against Washington, but is shooting 33.3 percent from the field overall and 29.7 percent from downtown.

This is the first meeting between the Silver Stars and the Storm since last June 14, with the teams playing all three of their 2008 matchups over a three-week period. Home court held in all three games, allowing San Antonio to take a tiebreaker that might have been crucial had the two teams ended up tied for first place in the Western Conference. Despite the long period since the last matchup, the teams will need little help preparing for each other. Because Storm Head Coach Brian Agler worked under San Antonio's Dan Hughes from 2005 through 2007, the teams have similar philosophies and systems.

"They run a lot of the same stuff they do, so the scout was interesting this morning," said Lauren Jackson after Monday's practice. "Everything we were running was our stuff."

Since playing in Phoenix last Wednesday, the Storm was able to take two days off (including a travel day) and practice three times in anticipation of returning home. The practice time was valuable after consecutive losses at Los Angeles and Phoenix, and also marks the beginning of an extended stretch at home. Having started the season with seven road games amongst the first 10 games, the Storm will now play four in a row and six of the seven before the All-Star break at KeyArena.

"I do think that can help," said Agler. "I think part of our situation has been just the amount of different environments we've been playing in, those types of things."

KEY MATCHUP
	The point guard matchup features the WNBA's two leading assisters in Sue Bird (6.2 apg) and Hammon (6.0 apg). That's especially impressive given that both players are as capable of beating opponents as scorers as by setting up their teammates. Bird is slightly more skilled as a passer, while Hammon's role requires her to be more of an option on offense. The Storm did an excellent job of defending Hammon a year ago, limiting her to 13.3 points per game and 4.0 assists on 36.4 percent shooting. Bird, who will play against Darling much of the game, averaged 11.3 points but 8.0 assists, handing out three times as many assists as she had turnovers last season against San Antonio.