2008 WNBA Playoffs Recap – September 23 – No. 1 Detroit Shock 80, No. 4 Indiana Fever 61

Posted by Dan on September 24, 2008

2008 WNBA Playoffs Recap – September 23 – No. 1 Detroit Shock 80, No. 4 Indiana Fever 61

Eastern Conference

No. 1 Detroit Shock 80, No. 4 Indiana Fever 61

DETROIT – Over the last six seasons the Detroit Shock have been the top team in the WNBA’s Eastern Conference. They are one step closer to continuing that reign by beating the Indiana Fever, 80-61, in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs.

Detroit, who has advanced to the WNBA Finals three of the last five years and won a pair of titles, moves on to face New York in the Eastern Conference Finals. The best of three series begins on Friday.

The Shock eliminated the Fever from the playoffs for the third year in a row. Last season it was in the conference finals and the year before it came in the opening round.

The game, and the Fever’s season, was nearly over before it began. Steaming from Ebony Brown being fined but not suspended after she dumped Plientte Pierson onto the court and separated her shoulder in game two, Detroit came out on fire in the first quarter.

“Obviously, that was a spectacular performance on both ends of the floor,” Shock coach Bill Laimbeer said after the game.” That was the way a championship-caliber team plays.”

Deanna Nolan and Katie Smith hit a pair of shots to help stake the Shock to a 12-0 lead at the 7:09 mark. Indiana missed its first three shots and had three turnovers before it got on the board with a Tammy Sutton-Brown jumper at 6:31.

Following a Tully Bevilaqua free throw at the 5:39 mark, the Fever would only score two more points the rest of the quarter. Detroit ended the half on a 16-2 run that was capped by a Nolan jumper to give the Shock at 30-7 lead after the first quarter.

It wouldn’t get any better for Indiana in the second quarter. The Fever would not score for nearly the first three and a half minutes on the quarter and a jumper by Nolan at the 5:34 pushed Detroit’s margin to its largest of the game, 31, at 41-10.

The lead would hover around 25 until Indiana closed the first half on a 6-2 run. Nolan hit a runner as the clock expired to send the Shock into the locker room up 49-19

Indiana would try to make a game of it in the third quarter as it cut the lead by 13. A pair of Tamika Catchings’ free throws with 52 seconds left sliced the margin to 56-43. At that point the Fever were on cruise control with most of the reserves in the game.

“I think we were stunned,” Catchings said. “There was a point where you looked up at the scoreboard and we were down by 30 in the first half, and they were still coming at us on both ends of the floor. I just wanted us to wake up.”

As one would expect in a blow out, Detroit had the advantage over Indiana in nearly every facet of the game. The Shock had six more rebounds than the Fever – with the half dozen margin coming on the offensive glass – and they forced Indiana into committing 21 turnovers. Indiana had its troubles behind the arc where it only managed to shoot 11.8 percent (2-of-17).

Four players reached 10 points or more for the Shock with another reaching nine markers. Leading the way was Nolan at 21 points. Smith was next with 15 followed by Kara Braxton (12) and Taj McWilliams-Franklin (10). Four players had five or more rebounds, led by Aleix Hornbuckle with eight boards to go along with nine points.

Leading the way for Fever in the scoring column was Sutton-Brown with 20. Catching came close to a triple-double with 15 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.  Katie Douglas had 10 points. Hoffman went scoreless, but did have 10 rebounds.