September 19, 2009 - 12:39pm
Deanna Nolan showed last night why you never count out a champion. Overcoming symptoms of concussion incurred just two nights before, the Michigan native, who played college ball in Georgia, scored 22 points on eight-of-20 shooting from the field hand and handed out five assists, leading her club to a 94-79 drubbing of the higher-seeded Atlanta Dream on their on their "home" floor and to a sweep of their series.
Detroit will now move on to face the winner of the Indiana - Washington series, the second game of which will be played tonight at Conseco Fieldhouse. The Fever lead that series, 1-0.
Coming into Fridays encounter, Nolan was listed as "questionable" for the night's game, and her clearance to play came down to a game-time decision. She had to be helped from the court, as she sank to the floor complaining of dizziness nearly a minute after suffering a hard blow to the head in a collision with Atlanta's Sancho Lyttle in the final minute of Wednesday's game, and continued to complain of "wooziness" after the Shock arrived in Atlanta on Thursday. But Nolan participated in Friday morning's the shoot-around earlier and passed the neurological tests needed to be cleared to participate.
Early on the game, it was obvious that she was not 100% as she did not attack the basket but rather settled for jumpers, which fortunately for the Shock, were nevertheless going down with sufficient regularity that she led her team in scoring in the first half with 16 points (5/11 from the field and 6/6 from the foul line). The heightened propensity of athletes who sustain a concussion to suffer another is just one of the reasons why trainers and coaches have become so cautious about allowing a concussed player to return to action too quickly. But Nolan was not about to join the stable of Shock stars watching the game from the sidelines. She played played nearly 37 of the game's 40 minutes, despite taking another hard clip in Game 2, and the Shock could not have done it without her.
On the Dreams side of the injury report, Chamique Holdsclaw, who was ineffective on Wednesday in her first game back from arthroscopic knee surgery, sat out this game entirely as her knee was again acting up. Given the erratic play of her replacement Angel McCoughtry in this contest, a healthy Holdsclaw was needed to save the Dream from extinction. The Atlanta-based team, forced to play in out-of-town Gwinnett Arena rather than downtown Phillips Arena (occupied by a performance of Sesame Street Live), lacked energy for most of the night. In the post-game press conference Coach Marynell Meadors commented that her team seemed a step slow compared to Wednesday.
Unlike game one, the Dream, known for their running game, rarely got out on the break and, for that matter, the relatively few easy baskets in the first three quarters were scored by the Shock. For the most part, the pace was moderate, seemingly dictated by the Shock, who got back quickly on defense so regularly that, more often than not, the Dream didnt seem to be trying to push for a quicker pace.
