Tina Charles has been stupendous this season, averaging 18 points and 9 rebounds a night, good for fourth and second in the league, respectively. Her presence down low has been a big reason why the New York Liberty are 18-7, in first place in the East, and in possession of the best record in the league by percentage points.
On Friday night against the Atlanta Dream, she was once again dominant, putting up 25 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. But it was a low-key aspect of her game which was so useful for the Liberty, and which I want to take a look at today. Her strong rim runs.
The Liberty do not like to get out on the fastbreak, preferring instead to run their sets in the half court. On Friday, however, the Dream tried to push the pace, at times drawing the Liberty into an up and down game. Yet while they would rather slow the game down, the Liberty showed they are not inept when they get out and run at times.
They especially had success when Charles would get out ahead of everyone, making strong runs straight to the rim. Let’s take a closer look at how Charles used one of those strong rim runs to get herself an easy bucket.
After a turnover late in the second quarter, Carolyn Swords hands the ball to Tanisha Wright, and the Liberty are off. Running out ahead of everyone, of course, is Tina Charles.
As she gets out in front, only one Dream defender is back in the play. This allows Charles to seal her defender deep in the paint and not have to worry about any help defense.
Wright makes a nifty bounce pass from the three point line that leads Charles right to the rim, and it’s an easy bucket while the whole Dream squad stares helplessly.
Charles gets herself an easy bucket simply through hustle and determination. Running hard down the court to get yourself in good position requires no skill. Charles simply outworked everyone on the court, and got rewarded justly.
She did this multiple times on the night, and here you can see a few other examples of how she gets herself easy baskets and earns trips to the free throw line by making a strong rim run.
Finally, let’s take a look at how one of Charles’ strong runs to the rim helped out a teammate. Once again, Charles gets out ahead of the pack, running straight towards the rim.
This time, the Dream are able to get a few defenders back, but both collapse down onto Charles. Meanwhile, Essence Carson floats out to the corner, spacing the floor and setting up for a three. No Dream defenders run to her, however, since Charles is drawing all the attention in the paint.
As the ball is kicked out to Carson in the corner, Angel McCoughtry is unable to recover in time, resulting in a wide open three. The shot doesn’t go in, but it doesn’t subtract from the importance of Charles’ rim run.
Just because Charles’ hard rim run didn’t result in a basket on this occasion, doesn’t mean it wasn’t effective. It opened her teammate up for a wide open shot, and more often than not, Carson is going to knock that down.
It won’t get a lot of attention, of course, but these strong runs in transition by Charles were a big part of the Liberty’s success on Friday against the Dream. And they’re just another example of why she’s so important to New York.