CHICAGO at SEATTLE
Seattle receives today Chicago in the first game of the season, in a
year where there is a lot of expectations for the team. The Storm have
an amazing start lineup and the expectations are really high. On my
research I found that that yesterday already 13.000 tickets have been
sold for this game, which is an amazing number and it's at the same
level of the attendance of the games of the Sonics in the... NBA! The
starting lineup is consisted by five All-star players who are all in
good physical shape. Yolanda Griffith, Swoopes and Cash were part of
the training camp the whole time, while Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird
came from Europe where they played in the off-season. In the preseason
all three players that I've mentioned played at a very good level,
especially Yolanda who in the last preseason game made in 18 minutes,
14 pts 9 reb and 2 steals. The positive fact of Jackson and Bird have
come late to the training camp was that they are both playing at
Seattle for a couple of seasons and they were also team mates in
Europe, so there is already a good team chemistry.
Lauren dominated not only the WNBA last season, as also she was
elected the MVP of the biggest European competition: the Euroleague.
Today they will play against Chicago, which is a pretty good and young
team. There is a lot of hope in the Sky on Fowles, who was the number
two pick in the draft, but it will be hard for her to play well in her
debut game. Fowles will be defended by Yolanda and Lauren, two very
tough defenders and also two former best defender of the season award
winners. So it will be normal that she will struggle a little bit
today. Already in the preseason when Chicago faced the Sparks, Fowles
shot just 3-13 FG, while being defended by Lisa Leslie, which shows how
she still struggles, while being defended by a top player.
Today I expect a blowout of Seattle, as the team has been improving
very well in the preseason and in the last game against Indiana, they
had a very good ball movement, with 19 assists and just 10 turnovers.
With Lauren Jackson in great shape, the Storm are too strong and
powerful for this young Sky team. Seattle is very tough at home and
last season they had a home record of 12-5 at home and in the season
opener in 2007, they defeated Houston by 82-67, without any problems
when they had a spread of 7 points. Take Seattle in here.
PLAY 1* UNIT ON - 7.5 SEATTLE
Good Luck for the opening day 