League MVP Breanna Stewart is now also the Finals MVP, after leading Sue Bird and the rest of the Seattle Storm each to their third WNBA Championship (it's Stewart's first).
All several hundred Seattle-native Storm fans were breaking out the brooms for the Storm homecoming, as the Game 3 win in Washington completes a 3-0 Finals sweep, and plans are being made for a homecoming celebration in Seattle's biggest broom closet.
Dozens of noisy Storm fans were on hand in Seattle, nearly doubling the already anemic home crowd, which might have looked abandoned if not for them and the scorers' table, plus some of the players's families, and John Wall was there.
In all seriousness, Mrs. Mo and i watched almost every minute of the Finals clinching game. I was astounded by the athletic abilities of Stewart, she's freaking incredible to watch. Sue Bird is still a dominating player in the point in this situation, where she had two very solid bigs, including Stewart's abilities both in the post and from the perimeter. Washington has a solid team, offensively potent even facing the extremely Tenacious D of most of Seattle's roster. The Mystic's D looked okay too, except when Bird was running the point with the starting bigs - Washington's defense simply had no answer and were utterly deconstructed at those matchups. I give credit to their defensive coaching staff for throwing the kitchen sink out there, but nothing they tried stopped that Seattle group from scoring at will.
The hard part to watch is all the empty seats in the place. It's so disappointing. I don't understand why collegiate women's basketball is so popular in the US but professional female basketball players literally HAVE to play overseas to make a living, and essentially donate themselves playing the WNBA season to try to popularize the sport. Some of these women are global icons, and they come to their own country to play for peanuts and tiny groups of fans, it's really kind of embarrassing.
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In only slightly related news, former NY Liberty point guard Becky Hammon became the first woman to interview for a head coaching position in the NBA earlier this offseason when she was interviewed for the position by the Milwaukee Bucks. She's currently an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs.
