Shock Hopes the Road Cures Home Woes

Originally Published: May 22, 2010 5:23 PM CDT

Bobby Lewis
Oklahoma Sports Mobile Journalist

TULSA, Oklahoma – The Tulsa Shock will try to turn around a rough start at home when they travel to Minnesota for a second showdown with the Lynx. The Shock lost to Minnesota 80-74 at the BOK Center on opening night.

“When we were the Detroit Shock, we played better on the road,” said Shock center Kara Braxton. “So, maybe that’s a good thing. You’re away. You’ve got less distractions when you’re on the road and stuff like that.”

The road is where the team hopes to pick up steam. It’s also the place where Tulsa hopes to pick up its first win of the year.

Head coach Nolan Richardson’s collegiate teams always performed well. His finished with a 536-224 record over 22 seasons between the Universities of Tulsa and Arkansas, but admits that the WNBA is a totally different game.

“The sad part about the WNBA is that most expansion teams don’t win basketball games,” he said. “If you look at our team, it might be less than an expansion team because the key players off of the team that I have right now, there’s not really a star or even a starter.

“We’ve got to work on things like team basketball a little more. I don’t want to do what Atlanta (Dream) did a year before. They won four games out of 30. They were an expansion team. The next year they were in the playoffs. It just takes some time.”

Richardson said his Shock team will find success this season if they continue to work hard in practice. The team has played well on defense through its first two games, but hasn’t found a consistent way to score in the second half.

“I think we’re going to get a lot better,” said Richardson.

The Lynx are 1-2 this season. Sunday’s game against Tulsa will be Minnesota’s first home game of the season. The game time is set for 6 p.m.