On the surface, the season was a letdown. After the signing last May of two-time MVP and future Hall-of-Famer Candace Parker, you could say the sky was the limit. Armed with a pair of all-star guards in Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley, the Sky seemed primed to make some serious noise.
But injuries to Quigley and Parker helped stunt what should have been a coming out party, and the Sky stuggled to a .500 record, finishing 16 – 16.
But as innummerable promotional campaigns have stated: That was then. This is now.
Edging into the playoffs as the number-six seed, the Sky defeated the Dallas Wings in a win-or-go-home contest 81 – 64. Considering Dallas went 14 – 18 during the regular season, was the number-seven seed and that the game was played in Chicago, well, it could almost qualify as a foregone conclusion.
The surprise came in round-two.
Facing the four-time WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx (22 – 10) in Minnesota, the Sky had a great big challenge in front of them.
They played tough in a see-saw battle until mid-way through the third quarter, when a series of fast-break opportunites broke the game open. Outscoring the Lynx 27 – 20 in the fourth-quarter, the Sky walked away with an 89 – 76 win.
Four players finished with between fourteen and nineteen points (Vandersloot, small forward Kahleah Copper, center Azura Stevens and reserve Diamond DeShields) while another (Quigley) ended with eleven.
And what of power forward Candace Parker? Eight points, three assists and four rebounds.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the beauty of it. Up against a team six games ahead of them in the standings and on their floor, the Sky beat the Lynx by thirteen with their most-prominent player suffering through a mediocre game.
Kaboom.
And the Sky have continued that onslaught against the Connecticut Sun.
The Sun ended their season on a fourteen-game tear to finish with the WNBA's best record at 26 - 6. Four of their starters were named to the All-WNBA Defensive first or second team. And the Sun owned the legue's best defense, finishing with a defensive rating of 91.7.
All the Sky have done is beat them in a double-overtime thriller that featured just the second triple-double in WNBA playoff history and then apply their own defensive clamps while pulling out a 86 – 83 victory yesterday afternoon in Chicago.
On the cusp of a WNBA Finals appearance for just the second time in franchise history, fans can be excused for looking forward. I've been following sports for half a century, and this team has every earmark of being a Cinderella.
They're peaking at just the right time after a season of stops and starts. With that season under their belts, they're gelling and surging and appear to have that magic combination of talent and grit.
Forcing fourth-quarter turnovers against the Sun and then watching as Vandersloot tore down court and fired the ball to Copper or Quigley or hit the shot herself was as thrilling as anything I've seen in professional sports lately.
Especially from a team with 'Chicago' on its chest.
I can't speak for other WNBA franchises, but seeing the Sky perform in an arena at seventy-percent of capacity was heartening. The NBA's poor cousin, the WNBA—however deserving—doesn't enjoy the wall-to-wall coverage and isn't the mass-marketed colossus its big brother is.
But like seeing a band on the verge of breaking through, yesterday's game was played in front of passionate fans not-at-all hesitant to vocalize their support. No, it wasn't a sell-out. Scalpers aren't salivating over game-four.
But the fans in attendance were genuine. Real. No one was there to be seen. (And if they were, there weren't enough ESPN cameras to capture their on-trend prescience.)
Something's happening here. The Sky are rocking the WNBA, and it is so very, very cool to witness. At the risk of sounding like some deranged BDSM submissive, I am going to beg these women to kick my ass.
And kick it hard.
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