Rant: Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso Get FROZEN Out As The Chicago Sky Lose To The Indiana Fever

on Barbie night the Chicago Sky get blown out by the Indiana Fever for the pregame Kennedy Carter was once again ruled out health and safety protocols and when that happened this match was dead and in terms of the rookie race it just didn't matter the fever are RedHot and they have everyone available to them except for Katie Lou Samson which doesn't matter because fever fans have been calling for Lexi Hull to get her minutes so even with Kennedy it would have been a tough game to win because their team is just better constructed but without her there was just no shot I love what Kennedy brings to this team leads the league in Fast Break scoring she can get a bucket at the rim and in the mid-range and outside of the skyscrapers she's the best entry passer to them the best at getting them involved which the fact that all three of them Angel Camila and Kennedy have that chemistry and understanding of what needs to be done that locks them in that's the big three of the future with that said availability is starting to become a problem she's missed three out of seven games since the season started up again hopefully she gets better but I just don't like it because it's costing them games it's costing the team bonding time to build chemistry on the court with her and when and if she gets back she's going to have to shake off some Rust and come off the bench and reintegrate herself back into the starting lineup over the course of a game or two just got to stop playing behind the eightball giving into the game the Chicago sky got off to a surprising 21 to9 start behind Lindsay Allen and Michaela just going crazy hitting threes and playing with pace which although the three-point shooting isn't always there I love that they played with Pace because this just isn't a halfcourt scoring team right now despite the Good Start they couldn't get back in transition which hurt them all night but even then they still let the game like 26- 17 before diamond and Dana subbed in together at about the 3 minute Mark and that would be the end of Chicago scoring for the rest of the quarter because the ball movement stopped The Bigs weren't getting fed and Rachel kept on missing threes so after building up a double digit lead they only ended the quarter up 26 to 23 and it was at this point where I knew that they lost because they had the fever on the ropes but they gave them life and that 21-9 start Chicago just didn't have another one of those runs in them in the second quarter it was more of the same of what happened in the first quarter no ball movement no feeding the bigs all wall the fever just kept on scoring at will when Dana and Diamond checked out of the game they were both like minus 12 minus 13 clearly the biggest culprits the full starting lineup got back in the game with around 4 minutes left and they actually played the fever fine only ending the quarter down five but there was no answer for Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlyn Clark in this quarter they went off and when Kelsey Mitchell is allowed to push off on Michaela to get an open three I don't know what can be done it shouldn't really be a hot take to say that the fever have the refs in their back pocket I checked the stats recently they get some of the least free throws in the league but free throws aren't everything and doesn't take into account Miss calls like the one that I just talked about and Caitlyn getting to push off with her left arm every single play called the offensive foul also in one of their recent games against the dream she flagrant fouled Jordan Canada the same exact way Reese flagrant fouled her but it wasn't even reviewed to get upgraded and it didn't receive the same outrage then in the previous Connecticut Sun game while only up two with 40 seconds left benley played good clutch defense on Thomas but the ball clearly went out on her with like two seconds left and the fever got the ball with no commotion or debating then after that with 20 seconds left when Kelsey Mitchell tried to catch the ball to get free throws she fell to the ground by herself but that was whistled as a foul and the sun had to challenge to get it removed but the fever still got the ball which gave them another chance to inbound the ball get free throws and make it a two possession game 8480 whereas if the ref didn't call that Phantom foul then the sun would have been in the perfect position to force a jump ball down to with 20 seconds left and potentially tie up the game or take the lead but getting back to the sky game that's not going to be the last time that officiating gets mentioned it's just the beginning in the third quarter it was more of the same the guards wouldn't feat The Bigs which forced Angel to call her own number which just doesn't work on offense but defensively I noticed that a lot of times when Angel isol it's a wasted offensive possession and that always seems to lead to scores on the other end which is why I don't like it as much she got clicked by Nelissa Smith and had to exit the third quarter at the 540 Mark early with four fouls speaking of fouls it was a ref show there's Michaela fouling Caitlyn on a three that got upgraded to a flagrant one which one sent Michaela to the bench along with Angel because that was her fourth foul and it put the fever in position to get five points on that possession because right after that Aaliyah got Camilla up in the air and Drew a foul which I can admit that's a foul but there's no consistency because that's a soft call while ree gets beat up in the post almost every night but it'ss no calls then they caught an illegal screen on Michaela when she screened Kelsey even though in the previous quarter Kelsey pushed off on Michaela and there was no foul and then they caught a phantom traveling call on Camilla then when the fever got in the bonus they were just calling everything on all types of bumps in a contest packed sport another thing about the officials that I want to point out is that they took too long to come up with calls the egregious one was when Caitlyn turned the ball over and it was recovered by Mariah but then she didn't really get that much control and Dante stole it from her which was called a foul which meant free throws for this guy because they were in the bonus but the fever challenged it and then they went to this long replay review to determine that the foul happened after Dante stole the ball so it's Indiana ball with which led to a Dante score I didn't like that call but the bigger issue is that they took so long to come up with the call on a national TV game a highly anticipated game in a sport that is supposed to be fast-paced which is why I choose to watch it over something like football and the commentators were applauding about how it's a veteran officiating crew and they're going to make sure they call the game right but not at the expense of the game and its entertainment plus I already talked about how they're not interested in getting every call right only the calls that favor the fever this was shown once again on the last play of the quarter when with a tenth of a second left Lexi Hull got fouled by Mariah Jefferson on a putback attempt and they took a long time to review it and gave her free throws not only did they take too long to review it but also it's like did you really have to call that with 0.1 seconds left it was just so Ticky Tac it's just a laughable call the bench was holding up decently well in this quarter they just couldn't stop fouling but that call blew the game wide open as the quarter ended 7864 with the fever on top also while going on my rant about the refs I didn't get the time to say that the narrative about the sky beeding Angels so she can get her stats in they're not playing through Camila was completely debunked last night it's always been false because Angel never actually gets plays run for her and that's clear to anyone that actually watches Chicago Sky basketball and they're not just box score watching she'll take some questionable shots sometimes but that's a result of the guards freezing her out of the game and she just has to shoot something because what the guards have going on just doesn't work because it always leads to a lot of missed shots and shot clock violations also when she gets the ball that's rare she might not see it again for like a 3 to four minute stretch because they don't run plays for her the end goal of a Chicago Sky possession has never been to scheme an open shot for Reese or to get her a post up most of her shots are off offensive rebounds or they're self-created Angel Reese has never been the focal point of the Chicago Sky offense because they opt to play through the guards rather than the bigs which clearly isn't working but getting back to this game specifically Angel was sent to the bench at the 540 Mark in the third quarter she had four fouls even with Angel out of the game the guards still refuse to feed Camila there's no excuse for her to have one field goal attempt and one trip to the free throw line in 10 minutes of play in this quarter actually on a game by game basis the only one that's willing to feed Camila and can actually make an entry pass is Angel so she's never been the problem and regardless of the questionable fit with them both being non-sh Shooters they need to stay together because they have the best IQ and chemistry on the team and they're the least selfish players which goes a long way in building a winning culture so in the end that 6-minute stretch really just exposed how selfish and low IQ the guards are then in the fourth quarter it's just garbage time that saw more of the same stuff I hated to see Lindsay pass up an open three because she shot perfectly from three-point distance tonight speaking of Threes there was no defense for Lexi hle in this quarter because the sky gave up game's over also something that I wanted to bring up is that angel had a perfect seal but she got a 3se second violation because the guards are selfish then there was a stretch where diamond kept on fouling Caitlyn on one of them Diamond beat Caitlyn to the spot but she's just not going to get that call she kept on fouling her before the inbound which led to a free throw and the ball and she got whistled for a flagrant foul on Caitlyn regardless of if these were the right calls or not this half was a complete ref show I didn't come to watch the refs plus the game was already over they're just prolonging the game the last note that I have is that angel stayed in in garbage time and had to fight for her double double which I'm for because she got sold out of her double double in the previous game because the guards were selfish and the coach doesn't run any plays for her and the same thing happened in this game where she got frozen out of the game so it's good that she got to leave with something most double doubles by a rookie in WNBA history the fact that she had to fight for a double double in the fourth quarter is unacceptable the rebounds will always be there then by playing within the offense and by being or she's supposed to be the team's thir scoring option and the second scoring option on this night but that didn't happen because the guards froze her out of the game but if she was used right her floor should be 10 points a night at least if Angel has to fight for her double double in garbage time then something went wrong at least 10 points and 10 boards should just come naturally to her within the flow of the game teaspoon even knows this because after the loss she said that the bigs weren't fed enough which is good awareness but she did nothing to get them the ball schemed them some open shots and post stops tell Lindsay Allen to stop dribbling out the shot clock and get it to Camila faster tell Dana Evans to stop hoisting up long Breeze and going for that floater that never goes in if you can get that close to the rim then you can surely Feed The Bigs everyone on this team knows how to pass to each other but they can't and won't pass to The Bigs so it's everyone's fault teaspoon has no Playbook and the guards are selfish before I get into player performance grades I've got to say that the commentating was biased it was a bunch of Caitlyn Clark glazing from the Chicago Sky home announcers which was embarrassing I don't even want them to glaze the sky just be unbiased on a nationally televised game they were hard to listen to which made me want to mute them but also I didn't want to because sometimes commentators give out interesting facts or when there's a foul call they can explain what happened which was needed because there were a lot of foul calls tonight this game had so much potential but the absence of Kennedy Carter the refs and the commentators just ruined the overall experience also one last thing that I wanted to add in I don't believe that head-to-head matchups are the end all be all but the rookie race is over it was always predetermined from day one because even when Reese was looking like the clear rookie of the year after that third fever game and in the Seattle game there were still a lot of excuses being thrown around and now with this Caitlyn 31-point performance and that LeBron tweet hyping her up there's no chance now it's time for performance grades teaspoon is going to get an F for this game in the first quarter the sky were cooking but when she sted diamond and Dana in at the same time that ruined all of their momentum as the 2617 lead that they built up crumbled to a 44 to 33 deficit when they were both completely removed from the game maybe having one of them out there would have been fine but they just can't both be in the same lineup next she let Michaela get cooked by K Caitlin all game and didn't try to throw different looks different bodies at her which made the game so easy for Caitlyn for players like that if you show them the same look every time they're going to figure it out also speaking of Defense you know that this is a fast-paced team but there was no emphasis on getting back on defense so what was the game plan here what were the practices looking like I couldn't help but laugh when going into the third quarter she was asked about the fever's ridiculous paint scoring and teaspoon said we got to be better or we got to play harder something along those lines she didn't give an actual basketball x's and O solution also teaspoon didn't run any plays for the bigs as always there's no excuse for your first round picks Camila and Angel to combine for 13 field goal attempts which for comparison is two less than Rachel got and the same as Michaela got and realistically it was even less because Angel got her double double in garbage time which means subtract two field goal attempts because it didn't happen in the relevant portion of the game Angel played the whole fourth quarter but her first shot attempt so this includes free throws as well her first shot attempt came at the 323 Mark when Indiana completely emptied their bench funnily enough the score was actually assisted by Camila because once again The Bigs are the best entry passers on the team and they're always looking out for each other they know what needs to be done the guards don't but yeah teaspoon said that the bigs needed to be fed but did nothing to ensure that happened happen even if you weren't going to win this game there was just no excuse for The Bigs to get less than 15 field goal attempts in this game easy F Michaela is going to get an F she was the best scorer tonight but the turnovers are always a thing she refused to feed the bigs and she just wasn't the answer for Caitlyn Clark no one got back in transition Lindsay Allen is going to get a c excellent first quarter she did enough to get the sky a big lead which is why I can't fail her but she was really quiet outside of that and she wouldn't Feed The Bigs also she got worked by Kelsey Mitchell Kelsey was keeping the fever in the game in the first and second quarter Rachel banam is going to get a d she hit some timely three-pointers but she missed the wide open layup also she just didn't need to take 15 shot attempts Angel Reese is going to get an F bad offense mainly because she wasn't getting the ball but like I said earlier when she tried to ISO those almost always ended in Miss shots and led to scores for the fever also she got worked by Nelissa in the third quarter I hate to give her an F because the offense side of my complaint is on teaspoon and the guards but I have to grade what actually happened on the court and this is an FW worthy performance Camila cardoso is going to get an F she was better than Angel because she was more playable didn't get in foul trouble but just like Angel she didn't get the chance to impact the game she wasn't efficient from the field but she was drawing so much attention down there she needed the ball fed to her diamond is going to get enough she got a crack at guarding Caitlyn and it seemed like every time she was whistled for a foul also the scoring from her was bad and to put some extra hot sauce on it I keep on saying how the game went off the rails when Dana and Diamond checked in so that has to count for more speaking of Dana she will also get an F same reason why Diamond got an F for being part of the collapse but also Dana had zero assists and zero turnovers which means that she was just a selfish Gunner all night opting to take long range threes at bad time which she went over for four on and she just refused to feed the bigs Isabelle Harrison is going to get a d she was all right in her minutes especially in place of Reese in that third quarter she wasn't the worst thing that I've seen but it just wasn't enough Mariah is going to get an F because of her inability to score and in the third quarter when she turned the ball over to Dantes then about a minute later she F Lexi Hall at the buzzer that was just so loud so disastrous finally Briana is going to get enough because she only played in garbage time the Chicago Sky played the Minnesota links on Sunday which similar to the fever the links have only lost one game since the startup and it's in Minnesota so that might be a tough game to win especially with the uncertainty around Kennedy Carter's Health but yeah I'm interested to see what happens and that is all for now [Music] n [Music]