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What does Rickea Jackson want to improve this WNBA season?<\/p>\n
USAT’s Meghan Hall asked Sparks forward Rickea Jackson what exactly about her game she’d like to get better at.<\/p>\n
Sports Seriously<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 Angel Reese is thriving in her new role.<\/p>\n
Believing Reese\u2019s skill set wasn\u2019t limited to rebounding, first-year Chicago Sky coach Tyler Marsh has asked the second-year player to be more of a \u201cpoint forward.\u201d It\u2019s taken a while, but what Marsh saw in Reese is becoming obvious to everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe versatility is definitely something I saw coming into the season,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cThere are different ways I felt she could be effective, in addition to rebounding and being low post, and I think she\u2019s showed this versatility as this year has gone on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reese is still getting her rebounds. Going into the All-Star break, she leads the WNBA (by a lot) with 12.6 boards a game. She\u2019s also scoring at a clip comparable to her rookie season, with 14 points a game.<\/p>\n
But she\u2019s become a better, or more active, facilitator. Her 3.8 assists are double what she averaged last year, and she\u2019s had four or more assists in six of her last nine games.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s got gifts. She\u2019s big, strong and has \u2026 just a high IQ for the game. And (she\u2019s) competitive,\u201d said Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, whose Lynx team faced Reese and the Sky three times in a nine-day span this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can get really far with a high IQ and being so competitive, and a passion and willingness to improve,\u201d Reeve added. \u201cAnd that’s what we’re seeing from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reese is an All-Star for a second consecutive season, selected as a reserve for Saturday’s game. She’s on Team Collier, which Reeve will coach.<\/p>\n
Marsh, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant with the Las Vegas Aces, has said since he arrived that he wants the Sky to play with \u201cspace and pace.\u201d The idea being it will open up the floor and give Chicago multiple options offensively.<\/p>\n
Reese is a key part of that. She hoovers up pretty much anything around the basket but would usually feed the ball to someone else. Now Marsh tasks her with initiating the offense more, as well as encouraging her to extend her range.<\/p>\n
Expanding her shot selection was something Reese had focused on during the Unrivaled season, training with Napheesa Collier and her husband Alex Bazzell, the longtime skills coach for top WNBA and NBA players. Reese also works with Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie, the gold standard for a point forward in the WNBA.<\/p>\n
The initial results were \u2026 rough. Reese\u2019s shot was off \u2014 she went 0 for 8 in the Sky\u2019s second game of the season \u2014 and her assist-to-turnover ratio was sub-optimal. Worse, the transition became even more imperative when veteran point guard Courtney Vandersloot tore her ACL on June 7. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But Reese worked at it. And worked at it. And worked at it some more. Slowly, things began clicking.<\/p>\n
She had the first triple-double of her W career on June 15, finishing with 11 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists against Connecticut. She\u2019s already made (four) and taken (19) more 3-pointers than she did all last season.<\/p>\n
And in nine games since June 22, Reese is averaging a double-double while shooting better than 50% from the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just trust my work. I put the work in every single day. \u2026 And just being able to feel comfortable,\u201d Reese said after the July 12 game against the Lynx, when she had 11 of her 19 points and three of her four assists in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst quarter I felt comfortable. Those are shots I take in practice all the time,\u201d Reese said, of the opening period, when she missed just one of her six shots. \u201cWhen I have teammates that really put a lot of confidence in me to take shots that sometimes I wasn\u2019t comfortable taking before, it makes my job easier. When I\u2019m efficient and can do things on the court, offensively and defensively, it really helps the team to get a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago still has issues. It lacks a consistent shooter \u2013 still. The Hailey Van Lith experiment remains an experiment. Kamilla Cardoso missed four games while playing for Brazil at the AmeriCup, a qualifier for the Olympic qualifier. At 7-15, the Sky are on track to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive season after a five-year run of making the postseason.<\/p>\n
But Reese\u2019s development is an unquestionable bright spot for Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been her ability to understand when she\u2019s got the lane as a scorer and when she can be a facilitator. Then, obviously, what she brings on the defensive end, as well,\u201d Marsh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been her aggression and being able to recognize her opportunities in different areas of the floor,\u201d he added. \u201cWhether it\u2019s in the low post, high post or on the perimeter, and being able to feed off her teammates from that standpoint as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marsh always knew Reese was capable of this. Now everyone else does, too.<\/p>\n
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What does Rickea Jackson want to improve this WNBA season? USAT’s Meghan Hall asked Sparks forward Rickea Jackson…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[22380,4541,1496,1339,960,1497,8541,11332,3189,49566,10586,1910,5386,1818,5967,3663,1519,50,1269,8614,5622,450,1457,1451,4542,4540,62,1458,51980,232,1500,2869,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-74604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-all-star","9":"tag-angel","10":"tag-angel-reese","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-chicago-sky","14":"tag-columnists","15":"tag-columnists-opinions","16":"tag-content","17":"tag-courtney","18":"tag-courtney-vandersloot","19":"tag-game","20":"tag-il","21":"tag-illinois","22":"tag-lynx","23":"tag-minnesota","24":"tag-minnesota-lynx","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-opinion","27":"tag-opinion-content","28":"tag-opinions","29":"tag-overall","30":"tag-overall-positive","31":"tag-positive","32":"tag-reese","33":"tag-sky","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-sports-news","36":"tag-vandersloot","37":"tag-wnba","38":"tag-wnba-all-star-game","39":"tag-womens","40":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}