2010 WNBA Finals - Game 3 Quotes: Seattle Storm
Sep 17 2010 2:19AM
The following is a collection of quotes from Seattle Storm players and coaches after Game 3 of the 2010 WNBA Finals.
Lauren Jackson
Lauren, I wanted to ask you the same thing I asked Sue. That long six year journey, has it been the most rewarding of the two for you?
Look, they're completely different. I think the roads have been completely different, but, you know, after the last six years it's definitely taken us a long time to get back to where we were, and, yeah, I just I can't believe it's over. I'm actually kind of sad right now that it's all over.
Lauren, could there have been a more perfect season for one individual player, two M.V.P.s and then the Championship?
I don't think so. I did not expect, like I said, to have this sort of season, but it was my teammates. I wouldn't have achieved any of it without the great players that we have on our team. You know, I don't think individually I had the best season I've ever had, but the reason I got the awards was because of my teammates and the people around me and the fact that we were winning games. Like I said, I don't know if I'll ever be part of a team that's been as good or be at the end of a season and feel like I wish it would all start again because it's been so much fun.
Lauren, two questions. In the first half of the game they seemed to be annoying you or basically keeping things quiet. You broke it open in the second half. Can you talk about what changes you made in order to make that happen?
Well, again, my teammates stepped it up and opened me up. Once Swin started hitting those three's, they couldn't guard me as closely, and it made it easy for me to get looks. And like I said, I don't think I've had the best individual season or the best game today, but my teammates have been the best ever, and I don't think I have ever been part of a team as good as this.
Are you going to get an opportunity to celebrate with your teammates, or are you jumping on a plane to Europe?
I'm going to try to hold off until Sunday, to get on a plane, but my strength coach will probably yell at me. I'm going to go back to Seattle and spend time with the people in Seattle, and hopefully I'll be on the plane on Sunday over to Worlds.
We know that your team is waiting for you and you talk about the end of this, and that becomes a competition in a couple of weeks and you and Sue will be in opposing sides. How tricky mentally will it be to flip that switch?
I don't know. It's been a long season and I'm sad it's over, but right now at the moment I'm going to focus on the next few days and enjoy what we've achieved for the season, because it's another long six, seven eight months coming up for me, and I'm going to go to sleep dreaming about this moment and this day for those six months until we get back.
Sue Bird
Sue, you're a seasoned veteran. Can you talk about Angel McCoughtry and what do you see in the future for her playing in the Finals? ?
It's evident what her future holds. She is a great player in this league. She's really hard to stop and as she gets older she'll get more experience, she'll pick and choose her spots better, and the sky is the limit for her. Her athletic ability alone gives her that. Her talent alone gives her that. She carried them tonight, even in those last couple of minutes, even when that 3 went up. I really thought it was going to go in based on how she was playing the whole game. She is a tremendous player and she was very difficult to guard tonight.
Sue, since that last championship, all the stuff that's gone on, the ownership change, playoff disappointments, injuries, roster turnover, is it sweeter the second time around because of all you had to do to get back here?
Absolutely. I guess now I can be honest, right? Losing in the first round has been terrible, and having people write about it and talk about it, it's something that I took very personally, a lot of us took very personally and at times, you know, I view myself as a player well, I shouldn't say I "viewed," I judge myself as a player based on winning, that's how I judge myself, and to not win in five years really, really hurt. So to be sitting here now and with the playoff disappointment and the ownership change everything that's gone on, coaching change, player change, to sit here right now, I mean, I can't even describe it. And I know this is going to last for a full year, so that's the best part, I don't have to think about this until next May.
Head Coach Brian Agler
Coach, during the latter part of the third quarter you went on a 16 1 run against Atlanta. With less than 3 minutes left you had a 12 point lead. Was there any time you were fooled into thinking you had them put away?
I thought if we can score a couple more times and hit free throws, we could win, but we got stagnant. It's a tough thing to do. It's tough to score and hold people off, especially a team like Atlanta. They got out in the passing lanes and put a lot of pressure on the basketball. We were fortunate to have an opportunity to win and took advantage of it and got a stop at the end. You would think that you could hold that off, but we played at Phoenix about a week ago and we were down 12 with three minutes to go and won the game, so it happens; it happens in this league.
Coach, I noticed in the first half that in order for your team to stop their fast break, your players were adding pressure at that first point of that first outlet pass. Was that something that you consciously told them to do?
Well, our team was the first two games we were in transition letting them get the ball too deep to the basket. They were scoring at 8 to 10 feet, and we talked about today to try to make those 8 and 10 foot shots into 15 and 17 foot shots, and we did a good job of extending out and getting the ball contained, tried to pick our times to choose to foul so they could take the ball out of bounds so we could get our defense set and those types of things. For the most part the transition game that Atlanta is very good at didn't impact the series as much as it could. Now, they scored when we turned it over, but not off transition missed shots.
Brian, obviously Angel had a marvelous end of the fourth quarter, but there was a sequence toward the end of the third and into the fourth where she didn't score. Can you talk about what you did defensively during that sequence?
First of all Swin and Tanisha did a great job on her when they were matched up, and we were trying to switch a lot, we were trying to keep people in front of her and a big part of her offense is getting to the free throw line, and we didn't want to foul her. We wanted to contain her and make as tough a shot as possible, but like Sue said, Angel is a tremendous talent, she is a great player in this league, and if she gets the opportunity to keep playing like I know she will, she is going to be a marvelous star in the WNBA.
Guys, talk about what this will mean for the City of Seattle. You obviously have your fans that were here, but when you get back to Seattle and what it means for the city going forward. Two championships in 30 years, I think, only two.
We have a great loyal fan base, and you could see out there in the arena we had probably 2 or 300 people here, and vocal, and Key Arena is like that. During the season we get 8 or 9,000, in the playoffs it's 13 or 15,000 like that. The media coverage in our city is as good as any city in the WNBA, and I think that makes a difference because of the exposure our team gets. Probably the biggest thing that we have goin' for us is our star players, Sue, such a great person and a great player, an All Star, Olympian. Lauren is a great person, a great player, All Star, Olympian. They're the best at their positions, they're tremendous ambassadors for our team, and the city has adopted them, and this is their second championship. We won't talk about down the road here, because it's too early, we need to celebrate, but with them on the team we're going to be extremely competitive.
I want to say one more thing, and one reason Sue is here, Sue, to me, flies under the radar from getting exposure. She does her job on the floor better than anybody. We had a gentleman come in and talk to our team right after our first playoff game, Bill Russell. And I did a lot of research on him before he came in so I could talk to our team about him, and believe it or not, it sort of reminds me of Sue. Of the 13 years he played in the NBA, he was only First Team once or twice. He was Second Team All NBA several times, but at the end of his career, because of his impact on winning, he was known and may be known as the greatest player ever to play, and that's going to be Sue Bird, because she impacts winning and she's such a good person.
Lauren Jackson
|
Lauren, I wanted to ask you the same thing I asked Sue. That long six year journey, has it been the most rewarding of the two for you?
Look, they're completely different. I think the roads have been completely different, but, you know, after the last six years it's definitely taken us a long time to get back to where we were, and, yeah, I just I can't believe it's over. I'm actually kind of sad right now that it's all over.
Lauren, could there have been a more perfect season for one individual player, two M.V.P.s and then the Championship?
I don't think so. I did not expect, like I said, to have this sort of season, but it was my teammates. I wouldn't have achieved any of it without the great players that we have on our team. You know, I don't think individually I had the best season I've ever had, but the reason I got the awards was because of my teammates and the people around me and the fact that we were winning games. Like I said, I don't know if I'll ever be part of a team that's been as good or be at the end of a season and feel like I wish it would all start again because it's been so much fun.
Lauren, two questions. In the first half of the game they seemed to be annoying you or basically keeping things quiet. You broke it open in the second half. Can you talk about what changes you made in order to make that happen?
Well, again, my teammates stepped it up and opened me up. Once Swin started hitting those three's, they couldn't guard me as closely, and it made it easy for me to get looks. And like I said, I don't think I've had the best individual season or the best game today, but my teammates have been the best ever, and I don't think I have ever been part of a team as good as this.
Are you going to get an opportunity to celebrate with your teammates, or are you jumping on a plane to Europe?
I'm going to try to hold off until Sunday, to get on a plane, but my strength coach will probably yell at me. I'm going to go back to Seattle and spend time with the people in Seattle, and hopefully I'll be on the plane on Sunday over to Worlds.
We know that your team is waiting for you and you talk about the end of this, and that becomes a competition in a couple of weeks and you and Sue will be in opposing sides. How tricky mentally will it be to flip that switch?
I don't know. It's been a long season and I'm sad it's over, but right now at the moment I'm going to focus on the next few days and enjoy what we've achieved for the season, because it's another long six, seven eight months coming up for me, and I'm going to go to sleep dreaming about this moment and this day for those six months until we get back.
Sue Bird
|
Sue, you're a seasoned veteran. Can you talk about Angel McCoughtry and what do you see in the future for her playing in the Finals? ?
It's evident what her future holds. She is a great player in this league. She's really hard to stop and as she gets older she'll get more experience, she'll pick and choose her spots better, and the sky is the limit for her. Her athletic ability alone gives her that. Her talent alone gives her that. She carried them tonight, even in those last couple of minutes, even when that 3 went up. I really thought it was going to go in based on how she was playing the whole game. She is a tremendous player and she was very difficult to guard tonight.
Sue, since that last championship, all the stuff that's gone on, the ownership change, playoff disappointments, injuries, roster turnover, is it sweeter the second time around because of all you had to do to get back here?
Absolutely. I guess now I can be honest, right? Losing in the first round has been terrible, and having people write about it and talk about it, it's something that I took very personally, a lot of us took very personally and at times, you know, I view myself as a player well, I shouldn't say I "viewed," I judge myself as a player based on winning, that's how I judge myself, and to not win in five years really, really hurt. So to be sitting here now and with the playoff disappointment and the ownership change everything that's gone on, coaching change, player change, to sit here right now, I mean, I can't even describe it. And I know this is going to last for a full year, so that's the best part, I don't have to think about this until next May.
Head Coach Brian Agler
|
Coach, during the latter part of the third quarter you went on a 16 1 run against Atlanta. With less than 3 minutes left you had a 12 point lead. Was there any time you were fooled into thinking you had them put away?
I thought if we can score a couple more times and hit free throws, we could win, but we got stagnant. It's a tough thing to do. It's tough to score and hold people off, especially a team like Atlanta. They got out in the passing lanes and put a lot of pressure on the basketball. We were fortunate to have an opportunity to win and took advantage of it and got a stop at the end. You would think that you could hold that off, but we played at Phoenix about a week ago and we were down 12 with three minutes to go and won the game, so it happens; it happens in this league.
Coach, I noticed in the first half that in order for your team to stop their fast break, your players were adding pressure at that first point of that first outlet pass. Was that something that you consciously told them to do?
Well, our team was the first two games we were in transition letting them get the ball too deep to the basket. They were scoring at 8 to 10 feet, and we talked about today to try to make those 8 and 10 foot shots into 15 and 17 foot shots, and we did a good job of extending out and getting the ball contained, tried to pick our times to choose to foul so they could take the ball out of bounds so we could get our defense set and those types of things. For the most part the transition game that Atlanta is very good at didn't impact the series as much as it could. Now, they scored when we turned it over, but not off transition missed shots.
Brian, obviously Angel had a marvelous end of the fourth quarter, but there was a sequence toward the end of the third and into the fourth where she didn't score. Can you talk about what you did defensively during that sequence?
First of all Swin and Tanisha did a great job on her when they were matched up, and we were trying to switch a lot, we were trying to keep people in front of her and a big part of her offense is getting to the free throw line, and we didn't want to foul her. We wanted to contain her and make as tough a shot as possible, but like Sue said, Angel is a tremendous talent, she is a great player in this league, and if she gets the opportunity to keep playing like I know she will, she is going to be a marvelous star in the WNBA.
Guys, talk about what this will mean for the City of Seattle. You obviously have your fans that were here, but when you get back to Seattle and what it means for the city going forward. Two championships in 30 years, I think, only two.
We have a great loyal fan base, and you could see out there in the arena we had probably 2 or 300 people here, and vocal, and Key Arena is like that. During the season we get 8 or 9,000, in the playoffs it's 13 or 15,000 like that. The media coverage in our city is as good as any city in the WNBA, and I think that makes a difference because of the exposure our team gets. Probably the biggest thing that we have goin' for us is our star players, Sue, such a great person and a great player, an All Star, Olympian. Lauren is a great person, a great player, All Star, Olympian. They're the best at their positions, they're tremendous ambassadors for our team, and the city has adopted them, and this is their second championship. We won't talk about down the road here, because it's too early, we need to celebrate, but with them on the team we're going to be extremely competitive.
I want to say one more thing, and one reason Sue is here, Sue, to me, flies under the radar from getting exposure. She does her job on the floor better than anybody. We had a gentleman come in and talk to our team right after our first playoff game, Bill Russell. And I did a lot of research on him before he came in so I could talk to our team about him, and believe it or not, it sort of reminds me of Sue. Of the 13 years he played in the NBA, he was only First Team once or twice. He was Second Team All NBA several times, but at the end of his career, because of his impact on winning, he was known and may be known as the greatest player ever to play, and that's going to be Sue Bird, because she impacts winning and she's such a good person.
