Starzz 67, Sting 65
Several of Utah's Starzz felt the pain Monday night.It felt so good.
It's one thing to get banged up during a loss. It's quite another to take one for the team and have it count toward a win. And this time it was a third straight win, tying the franchise record set July 2-8, this time against playoff-caliber teams.
At 11-15, the Starzz have three more wins than they've ever had before in one season. They remained slightly alive in the WNBA Western Conference playoff chase. They try for a team-record fourth straight win Wednesday at Minnesota.
Margo Dydek had a wrenched back but also the satisfaction of having caused a Charlotte turnover and missed layup in the last minute of a 67-65 Starzz win over 15-13 WNBA Eastern Conference co-leading Charlotte in the Delta Center. Dydek scored 14, had five blocked shots, eight rebounds and six assists with just one foul. During Dydek's 30 minutes, Utah outscored Charlotte 56-43.
The Sting cried foul on Vicky Bullett's missed short jumper with :32 left. "It was a foul. That's all I have to say, and everybody else knows it," said Bullett (nine points, 11 rebounds, three blocked shots). Dydek, undercut on the play, said no.
"I thought it was a foul," said Sting coach Dan Hughes.
Debbie Black (4-for-7 shooting, eight points, four rebounds) had a badly jammed right thumb and sliced left eyelid that required some eight stitches and hurt a great deal more, she said, than the first time the lid was sliced up for four to six stitches on June 5. But her three steals and a basket in the last eight minutes made the pain much easier to take.
"This was one of the tougher hits I've taken," admitted Black, whose eyelid collided with an inadvertent elbow from either Dawn Staley or Andrea Stinson of the Sting as the three fought for a loose ball near the end of the first half. Black lay on the floor for some time, instead of popping up immediately as usual, and she left a trail of blood as she went to get stitched up.
The second half, she keyed a Starzz stealfest -- seven swipes -- with three herself and sudden closing on ballcarriers that allowed teammates to pick the ball off at times.
"It reminded me of a Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali fight," said Utah coach Fred Williams. "She just kept coming and coming on the rope-a-dope. She's a fighter.
"The second half, I was going to sit her out, but she wanted to get right back in there. That's the type of heart she has," said Williams. "It pretty much inspired her teammates. That's the type of players I like around me, maybe have a little blood, get stitched up and go back in."
"I was pretty fired up. I'm a motivated player anyway, but just give me a little reason to be more motivated, and nothing's going to stop me," Black said. "I knew I'd go back in, and I knew I'd play well." In Black's 24 minutes played, Utah outscored Charlotte 45-28.
At 7-foot-2, Dydek towers a foot above most WNBA forwards, but she pays a price because when they elbow her, it's in the gut; when they attempt to stop her shots, they hit her face; when she goes up for a lob pass, they hit her in the back for the whiplash effect.
Her most-shining moments came with Charlotte leading 54-53. After a Starzz turnover, Dydek chased down Sting point guard Staley from midcourt and blocked Staley's fast-break layin attempt from behind. Seconds later, the Sting up 56-53, Dydek rose for a LaTonya Johnson lob pass. She was hit hard from behind as she touched the ball, which popped into the air. She re-caught it with one hand stretched behind her head and made a basket, then blocked a Rhonda Mapp shot and got the rebound.
Natalie Williams, who had another double-double (10 points, 11 boards). scored for a Utah lead, and Black hit a 15-footer off a Dydek pass for a 59-56 Utah lead. Charlotte would lead just one more time by one point.
"Sometimes when you expect to win, you just win," said Dydek, trying to explain why the Starzz can suddenly win close games against good teams. "Sometimes when you are scared, you always miss it. When one person fights like she wants to win, it brings the other players, too. The whole team play much more with confidence."
Utah was 4-1 on its homestand, all of the games coming since the July 29 trade that brought Korie Hlede and Cindy Brown from Detroit. "At Detroit, we never got that," Hlede said about winning four of five games. Hlede scored five straight points and got a rebound as Utah went from a 61-60 lead to 66-60.
"The adversity that we've been through in the last five minutes (in earlier games that were lost) is starting to pay off because we've been there so many times," said Goodson, who scored in double figures (14) for the 20th straight game. "It's gotten to a point where we're just starting to play through it. We don't have any fear of being there any more."