On Friday night, Brittney Griner played her first competitive basketball game in 18 months after missing all of last season due to her detainment in Russia. But even though she was able to score 10 points in 17 minutes, it was pretty clear that she was not the same dominant player that she was before her imprisonment.
Following Friday night’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Sparks, Brittney Griner had a pretty brutal assessment of her play during the game. She was particularly critical of her defense.
“I mean, honestly, like, I didn’t guard anybody today,” Griner said after the game according to ESPN. “First game back, preseason game. The game in L.A. (in Friday’s season opener) will look totally different. We’re going to do totally different things, but coach (Vanessa Nygaard) keeps telling me to give myself grace, but that’s hard.
“I was happy with some of the shots that I took, but defense — that I got to be better. I got to be a lot better.”
Thankfully for Griner, it was only a preseason game. But she will make her regular-season debut next week in a nationally-televised game against the Sparks. If she wasn’t pleased with her defensive performance on Friday, she has less than a week to fix it.
[ESPN]
