Chamique Holdsclaw Returns to the WNBA

One of the most talented players to come out of Tennessee, Chamique Holdsclaw, has returned to the WNBA. After a 2 year hiatus of playing only in the European league, Atlanta has negotiated her trade from Los Angeles to the Dream franchise in exchange for the 13th pick of the first round in the up coming 2009 WNBA draft.

“Coming back has been something that I have been thinking about for a while,” Holdsclaw said. “The only thing that was holding me back was my body and being healthy. I realized that if I had the chance I would like to play this summer.”

Holdsclaw will bring much needed experience to Atlanta

Holdsclaw is an 8-year veteran bound to bring much needed experience and leadership to our young team. She began her WNBA career in 1999 where she was the overall first round draft pick for the Washington Mystics. While there, she played 6 years for the Mystics and averaged 19 points and 8.3 rebounds per game and was awarded the WNBA Rookie of the Year.

In 2005, Holdsclaw was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks where she played 2 seasons and averaged 15.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

In June 2007, Holdsclaw announced her retirement from the WNBA but continued her basketball career over seas. Most recently she has been playing in Poland averaging17.6 points per game for TS Wisla Can-Pack Krakow in Euroleague.

“I’m just happy that Chamique is back in the WNBA,” said Dream General Manager & Head Coach Marynell Meadors. “I just think she really misses the game. I am looking forward to having her. She elevates our team to another level.”

To read more about Atlanta’s acquisition of Chamique Holdsclaw go to the Atlanta Dream website.

Katie Feenstra shoots over Phoenix Mercury forward Barbara Farris during the 1st quarter of Saturday’s game.

Atlanta also committed 16 turnovers that converted to 18 points of the Mercury.

Ivory Latta led the Dream with 18 points. Iziane Castro Marques added 17. Kasha Terry had 16 points and 11 rebounds.

The Mercury got out to a quick start making a 14-2 run in the opening quarter, 29-13.

Atlanta was cold, missing their first 14 shots and went 24-of-37 by the half. Phoenix took a 51-37 lead into the break.

Phoenix scored 9 straight points to open the 3rd, 78-55 and Atlanta didn’t gain any ground the rest of the game.

Iziane Castro Marques led the Dream to their 3rd win of the season over the Indiana Fever Wednesday night, with 24 points.

“We pretty much played 40 minutes of great basketball, and it was a great team effort,” Castro Marques said. “We never thought we were going to lose this game.”

Atlanta lead the Fever by 10 points in the 3rd but the Fever came back to within 2, 63-61 with just over 5 minutes left in the 4th.

Back-to-back 3s from Betty Lennox put the Dream back in the lead, 73-71 with minutes left. Lennox also hit 2 free throws with just seconds on the clock to seal the win, 81-77.

“Being 0-17 is nothing to be happy about, but the thing I like most is that we persevered through it,” Lennox said. “Nobody even expected us to win one game and now we got three.”

“We just were not making shots,” said coach Meadors. “We had open looks and we just did not knock them down. We kept missing, kept missing, kept missing and they kept scoring and kept pushing us down.”

Atlanta started slow and never really got a grove going. They shot only 15% from the field during the first quarter making only 3-out-of-20 shots to end the period 21-6, Chicago.

In the 2nd period, Chicago pushed a 13-2 run including 10 points from Candice Dupree to advance their lead to 44-17 at the half.

The Sky made a 6-0 run late in the 3rd, gaining a 26 point lead, 62-36 going into the 4th.

Atlanta finally kicked it into gear outscoring the Sky 30-17 during the 4th quarter but ti was a little to late for a win.

Jennifer Lacy and Betty Lennox scored 11 each and Kristine Haynie added 9.

Betty Lennox led the Dream with 24 points with 17 of those in the second half. Ivory Latta and Jennifer Lacy added 11 each. This is their second win all season.

“We lost enough games for a lifetime,” Lacy said. “We’re just resilient. We keep fighting and we find a way to come back. We make scrappy plays, we somehow find baskets. That’s been a character of our team the whole season, it’s just that now we’re finding a way to pull out those W’s.”

Minnesota came out in the first quarter to lead 19-6. Atlanta shot only 16.7%.

“We just looked at each other and we’re like ‘not again,’ and we kept fighting and fighting and pushing and pushing and getting stops,” Lacy said.

At half time, Minnesota had a 38-26 lead over the Dream.

In the second half the Dream played big.

Minnesota went on a 15-4 run in the 3rd but by the end of the of the quarter Atlanta had come within 5, 54-49.

Down by 6 points with just over 3 minutes left, the Dream rallied a 13-1 run, shooting 71%, for the win. Jennifer Lacy hit a 3 and Tamara Young made a layup off a long pass from Kristine Haynie. Haynie then scored on a drive with 35 seconds left in regulation to gain a lead of 71-67.

With just 24 seconds Allison Bales, a new acquisition from Indiana last week, blocked a shot by Nicole Ohlde. Bales also had 11 rebounds.

Ivory Latta led the Dream with 18 points with 16 of her 18 in the first half to win over the Chicago Sky, 91-84 on Saturday night.

Latta was so excited about the win she danced around the court with her teammates surrounding her as blue and white confetti poured over them.

“It was just this great feeling inside knowing we finally got one,” Latta said. “I looked up into the crowd and saw all the smiling faces and felt that this is what they deserve.”

Kristin Haynie added 11 points with 11 assists.

“Everyone stepped up and just had the mind-set of contributing,” Haynie said. “It was all about us getting it done.”

And they got it done! They came back from 13-points down in the first quarter when Tamera Young, Betty Lennox and Iziane Castro Marques contributed 10 points each. Jennifer Lacy added 11, 18 points overall, to help the Dream get to a 46-35 lead at half time. Lacy says the team never gave up.

“There was so much time left,” Lacy said. “We couldn’t give up. We couldn’t let this one slip through, so we kept pushing.”

Chicago did bounce back in the second half to push a 1 point lead, 81-80, with just under 2 mintues to go in regulation.

But the momentum changed after Young made 2 free throws to put Atlanta up by 1. Then Latta scored a layup and Young added 2 more free throws to put them up by 5 with less than a minute to play.

“She’s a winner, she’s an absolute winner,” coach Meadors said of Latta. “It’s never say die with her. She just looks at me with those big eyes and I know she wants it.”

With 20 seconds left to go, Chicago’s Jia Perkins hit a 3 to cut the Atlanta lead to 2, 86-84. But the Dream pulled away by hitting 5 more free throws to win the game 91-84.

With the win, Atlanta has some newfound confidence says coach Meadors.

“We finally got some smiles,” coach said. “We can actually walk with our heads up high and shoulders back. I think now we’ll be OK.”

The first period was sloppy for Atlanta. They shot 1-for-17 from the field and committed 8 turnovers, allowing Houston to jump to a 15-2 lead.

The 3 quarter was the highlight of the game for Atlanta when they made a 7 point run led by Kristin Haynie’s 3-pointer and a layup by Katie Feenstra to cut the Houston’s lead to 51-45.

“I was proud of the way the bench stepped up and was happy to give them an opportunity because they have been working so hard,” coach Meadors said.

In the fourth, the Dream rallied with a steal and layup from Ivory Latta. Then hit 3 free throws to cut the lead to within 3, 68-65. But Houston’s Shannon Johnson hit a short jumper and made 2 free throws to put the game away.

Betty Lennox led the Dream with 15 points.

Atlanta became the first team in the WNBA to hit the midpoint of the season without a win.

Atlanta acquired Seattle’s 2009 second-round draft pick for Little, who averaged 4.8 points and 4.0 rebounds in 13 games.

Terry, a 6-foot-3 forward, spent the last three seasons with the Indiana Fever and was waived after two games this year. She finished second in Georgia Tech history with 195 blocked shots.

And it was Detroit that delivered that 13th loss on Sunday, 97-76.

Coach Meadors is a realist. She understands that it will take time to build a strong team but with a 13-game loosing streak for the first season of franchise history can easily dissolve the early optimism.

You can hear the frustration in her words.

“I’m going to lose this year, OK?” Coach Meadors said. “We know the chances of us having a great year are not good.”

But there is still hope. Maybe not for this season although, at least 1 win would help, but when Detroit was down 13 games in 2002 they came back and won a championship in 2003. And have been a contending team ever since.

“Man, we just have to get that monkey off our back,” said Ivory Latta, who scored a career-high 26 points and 10 assists.

Betty Lennox, fifth in the league in scoring with 18.9 points, only had 5 and shot 2-for-6.

Iziane Castro Marques added 10 points.

Detroit led most of the game with the largest margin of 21 points until Plennette Pierson hit a short jumper with 1:30 left in the first half to bump that number to 23.

With 47 seconds left in the third quarter, Latta hit a 3 to cut the Detroit lead to 8. But the Shock answered with a 10-3 run, topped off by a 3 from Humphrey just before the end of the period.

The frustration runs deep in the new Dream team but they just need to put it behind them and get that first win. It will all come together after that. We as fans just need to be patient.