Insider Preview - Storm vs. Sacramento

While the Monarchs have seen precious little drop-off under new Head Coach Jenny Boucek, who replaced Whisenant when he moved to the front office after last season, the trend of strong second-half play may be reversing. Sacramento was 11-6 halfway through the season, the West's best record. That gave Boucek the chance to coach three of her players in the All-Star Game. However, since then the Monarchs have gone just 3-4 to slip to third in the West.

Sacramento has also seen its lock on ARCO Arena erode of late. When the Monarchs beat the Seattle Storm at ARCO earlier this season, it gave them an 11-game regular-season home winning streak. Phoenix came into Sacramento and won the following game, however, and the Monarchs are just 9-4 at home - including losses to Chicago, Connecticut and Minnesota, hardly the league's powers.

Sunday's loss had to be one of the most disappointing of the season for the Monarchs. The Minnesota Lynx brought a 1-8 road record to ARCO but left 78-73 victors behind a career-high 39 points from Seimone Augustus. The loss dropped Sacramento to third in the West, a game behind the second-place Mercury and two back of San Antonio.

The key for the Monarchs this season has been their defense. In one sense, that's been true dating back even past Whisenant. Led by Yolanda Griffith, the most underrated defender in WNBA history, Sacramento has long been a force at the defensive end of the court. Even with Griffith slowing some this season at age 37, the Monarchs remain dominant on defense thanks to the white-line defense instituted under Whisenant and continued under Boucek. They recently passed Indiana to take over the league's top spot in Defensive Rating, allowing 91.8 points per 100 possessions.

At times the last two seasons - both of which resulted in trips to the WNBA Finals - the Monarchs have had the ability to outscore opponents. That doesn't seem to be the case this year. Sacramento ranks 10th in the league in per-possession scoring, ahead only of teams likely headed for the lottery. As tellingly, the 70-point mark has been a magic number for the Monarchs. When they've allowed fewer than 70 points, they are 10-0. When opponents have gotten into the 70s, however, Sacramento is just 4-10.

The Storm was able to put up 72 points in a loss at Sacramento earlier this season only to see the Monarchs score 81 points in that game despite shooting 39.7% from the field. Sacramento took advantage of gaps in the Storm's 3-2 zone defense, employed to cut down on penetration and scores from the perimeter, to crash the offensive glass. Rebekkah Brunson, who leads the WNBA in offensive rebounding at 3.3 per game, pulled down seven of the team's 16 offensive boards. The Storm will return to the zone at times and has to do a better job boxing out the high post.

That Seattle was so close in Sacramento was encouraging because of the absence of MVP candidate Lauren Jackson, who missed the game with an illness. Jackson has been on fire recently, picking up her second consecutive Western Conference Player of the Year award, and has the ability to pick her spots against the white-line defense.

At the same time, the Storm must be careful not to fall into the trap of forcing the ball to Jackson in the post. As part of the white-line style, the Monarchs front Jackson in the post while bringing a help defender in from behind to protect against a lob. Errant passes end up in the hands of that help defender and start Sacramento fast breaks.

The San Antonio Silver Stars, who preceded the Monarchs into KeyArena on Sunday, play a similar defensive style under Dan Hughes. That matchup was a reason Storm Head Coach Anne Donovan didn't feel a need to go into excessive detail about the white-line defense during Monday's practice.

"The succession of these games should really help us in terms of playing San Antonio, great defensively, and then Sacramento," Donovan said afterwards. "We didn't practice that hard or long today because we had our practice against it last night."

The Silver Stars forced the Storm into 21 turnovers on Sunday, including costly ones down the stretch, but the Storm still had an excellent game on offense, shooting 51.6% from the field and running up 88 points.

"I thought we were pretty patient offensively," explained Donovan. "Lauren didn't score a point in the first quarter. In the second quarter, after JB (Janell Burse) established herself, we came out and got Lauren rolling. A big part of our success is when we have balanced scoring."

KEY MATCHUP
	Monarchs reserve Kara Lawson earned her first trip to the All-Star Game this season and is averaging a career-best 10.8 points per game on 37.4% shooting from downtown. Lawson came up big off the bench in the last meeting of these teams, scoring 16 points, and reserve shooters have given the Storm problems all season. Lawson has slumped recently, hitting just five of her last 20 shots over three games. The Storm bench was unable to offer much production in Sunday's loss to the Silver Stars, with Tanisha Wright (left) the only reserve to score.

Traveling to Sacramento on June 7, the Storm faced the daunting task of winning at ARCO Arena, where the Monarchs had won 11 straight regular-season games, without Jackson. Sacramento took control during the late third quarter and early fourth, leading by as many as 14 before a 12-0 Storm run keyed by a pair of Sue Bird threes. The Monarchs snuffed out the rally with two Lawson free throws and a Nicole Powell jumper, finishing up an 81-72 victory. Bird's 21 points led the Storm, which also got 10 points and five rebounds from rookie Katie Gearlds (both at the time career highs) and 13 rebounds from Wendy Palmer, filling in for Jackson as a starter. Five Monarchs scored in double-figures, led by Lawson's 16.

INJURIES

Storm - Center Janell Burse (torn ligaments, left wrist) is probable.

Sacramento - Forward DeMya Walker (torn patella tendon, right knee) is out.