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POSTGAME QUOTES
AUGUST 16, 2002


On the game:
"I thought Utah played good. I thought in the first half, Utah just played stronger, tougher, brought the game to us. I thought they came after us"

On the Utah defense:
"Guarding them all. Hard to sag off of anybody. They can all score. They all drove to the hole. They just sliced and diced in the first half, unbelievable. Give them credit."

On going to a zone:
"We had to do something, we weren't stopping them man to man. "They (Utah) shot 63 percent. For the first half, nothing worked. Nothing."

On Sheryl Swoopes:
"I thought Sheryl Swoopes had a Sheryl Swoopes type of game. I just don't know that you can miss 17 shots in a row and beat a good team anywhere at any time."

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On getting back into the game:
"I thought the first thing was we went in at halftime knowing we were down by 15, but never feeling like we were out of the game. I think all season we've put ourselves in a position to be down at halftime and had to fight really hard to come back. Utah's a very good team. For us to dig ourselves in a hole like that, we knew our work was cut out for us in the second half. On a positive note, I thought we did an incredible job of coming back. One good thing about this loss, we feel very confident in going back home. Even though that's not good enough, just going back home. We have to come out and be ready to play and be more aggressive and not allow ourselves to get into that position. I think if we come out and be more aggressive and do a lot of things we did we in the second half, then we will be fine."

On the Utah defense:
"I think all season long we've felt Utah has been a very good team offensively and defensively. A lot of the defense you can't teach, because Margo's 7-2 standing in the middle of the lane. She's going to change some things, she's going to alter shots, she's going to block some shots. Just because she's standing in the middle of the lane doesn't mean we have to stop being aggressive and stop driving the lane. For the most part I thought their defense was really good. They obviously had a game plan. I think what a lot of teams have done is that every time I touch the ball or put it on the floor I'm going to get double or triple teamed. The same thing happens with Tina. We talked about that. We have to find someone on our team that is going to step up and knock the shot down. All night long Jennifer was basically doing whatever she wanted defensively. She was coming to double on me on Tina. We have to have Sonja or Rita or whoever Jennifer is guarding step up and make some shots for us."

On Utah's double-teams:
"I don't think I got frustrated with double teaming because I kind of expected that. I got frustrated with a lot of the calls. I thought there were some times we should have gotten some calls and we didn't, but we never should have allowed ourselves to be in that position. I think we have to learn from it."

On Game 2:
"We have to come out and play Comets style basketball. By far we did not play our best game. Tina's coming off an injury she hasn't played the three games, this was her first game back and it was a very physical game. I think if we can get Tina going, get Janeth going, get myself going, and come out and do what we have to and not worry about what they're going to do. Obviously we have a lot of things to change and work on when we go back home, but I think we feel very positive that we will be able to get that done. It's not going to be easy. They feel very confident now, they have momentum on their side. Our back is pretty much agaisnt the wall. We have to go home and win two big ones at home."

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On the game:
"We talked about the importance of getting out of the gates strong against this team. Being aggressive in our defense and rebounding and attacking the basket and trying to get them back on their heels a little bit. We did that. They didn't win four championship for nothing. We knew they were not going to quit. They've come back on five different occasions when they've had a 20-point deficit. We knew they would make that run. I'm just proud of our team that they were able to withstand it. We didn't score as effectively against that zone in the second half as we would have liked. We did seem to come up with the big baskets when we needed to and the big stops when we needed to. Especially the last two possessions. We have a lot of work ahead of us. They're a great basketball team. That's (Compaq Center) probably the toughest venue in the WNBA to go play at. We're going to have to be better than we were tonight."

On the Utah offense:
"We've been a good zone offense team all year long. We just need to iron out a few wrinkles. I just thought we went away from what we needed to do, which was pound the ball in the paint. Obviously they went to a zone because we had so much success getting the ball inside….We'll be okay as long as we have the same mentality as we have in our man offense."

On Williams and Dydek:
"I don't think we got Natalie and Margo enough touches in the second half. It was something like 20-6 points in the paint in the first half, and those weren't just post paint points, they were also points off penetration with Marie and Adrienne. We just have to keep an aggressive mentality. Bottom line is we won the game. We'll iron some wrinkles out and get ready to go on Sunday."

On holding Comets to 17 consecutive missed shots:
"A long time, but that's playoff intensity basketball and that's what you have to bring if you're going to have an opportunity to win. I just thought we set the tone defensively to start the game."

On the Starzz:
"I'm so proud of our basketball team. We just going to stay even keel here, we're not going to get too high or too low. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. It's a great feat for our franchise and for our team. But I would have been very disappointed if this hadn't happened. We're a good enough basketball team to win a playoff team. We were good enough last year. We just hadn't been here before. I don't think there's any doubt that the playoff experience from last year was a huge factor tonight."

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