vs. 
Western Conference First Round Game 2
POSTGAME QUOTES AUGUST 18, 2002
COMETS COACH VAN CHANCELLOR
On the game:
"Wow. What a win! Oh, Lord, if you're a Comets fan, you've got to be happy tonight. I thought we were on the deathbed, I don't know how many times...down four late in the game, but a team of great resiliency. I thought we could have gotten beat a number of times. We played a really, really good team. We beat a team that is playing as well as anyone in the WNBA today. What a great win for us. Was that a great win? We limited them to 38.2 percent (shooting) and that's been our trademark. I thought the season was over there for a moment. I never in my life have questioned the attendance, but if there were 9,241 in there, they must have brought someone in their pocket, because I could not hear myself think, because they were yelling so loud. I thought that was the difference."
On his concern after Sheryl Swoopes went down with calf cramps:
"Was I a little concerned when the Swooper went out? No. I was a lot concerned. I didn't know where we were going. If you noticed, I was just walking down on the end looking for Sheryl, but could never find her. I was wondering where the trainer was. Michelle Leggett (trainer) earned her keep tonight, bring her back."
On the team's performance:
"I've been criticized for not playing our B's tonight, but our B's had 16 points and that's good. (Michelle) Snow had four points and nine rebounds. She has an 80.4" arm-span which nobody else has. She got us one jump ball, then a miss that Sheryl (Swoopes) put back in. I thought Tiffani (Johnson) gave me about five minutes late in the game on (Margo) Dydek that was really good, too. I thought the two plays that were big were the offensive rebounds and the three-ball (in the second overtime). We used to hit the three-ball that will break your back and we hit one tonight that just broke them. (Janeth) Arcain was 7-for-15. I thought she hit some really big shots after struggling early. The thing that I was really pleased with tonight was that I thought we had to play them man-to-man, they just ran us out of that zone, and I thought we played it pretty well late in the game."
On Utah's performance:
"Jump on us, pressure us on the wing, play Natalie Williams strong as a bull, then you put a giant in the middle, and she's just blocking shots. That's hard to do. They're a really good team. I think part of our problem is that they're really good. I'm going to enjoy this win."
SHERYL SWOOPES
On the game:
"This was a tough game. I think coming in today we knew that we had our work cut out for us. Utah is a very good team and after losing to them at their place, they came in here with a lot of confidence. Rightly so. But at that same time, we felt like we could go out and change a few things that we didn't do in the first game, so we were going to be OK. Coach said just because we are going back home, playing here wasn't going to get the job done. We had to come out, be focused, be more aggressive and attack them. Not allow them to dictate how the game was going to go, which is what we did when we played them there the first game. It was a huge win for us. We have got one more to go and we know it is going to be a dogfight on Tuesday. Hopefully, we will come out and not only do the good things we did today, but improve on some things we didn't do so well and, hopefully, we will pull it out on Tuesday."
On the team's slow start in games:
"For some reason we seem to do that all season long. Every time we think we are ready to play and we say 'we're ready to play' and we go out and we seem to start out very slowly. Against a good time like Utah, you can't really afford to do that. There were times when we saw ourselves doing the same thing we did in the first game, but I thought Coach did a great job of calling timeouts and changing defense. I thought that changed a lot of the momentum during the game. We were able to pull it out in double overtime and it was tough. I think later on down the road, it was one of those things where Margo (Dydek) got tired and we were all getting tired. But we were able to hang in there and pull this one out."
TINA THOMPSON
On the game:
"We did a lot of things defensively that allowed us to get opportunities on the offensive end. I think that Utah just played a great game today. They were executing offensively and they were doing what needed to be done to put the ball in the basket. I think as the game kind of grew, we got familiar with their characteristics. In that second overtime, we were able to get our hand on the ball in certain situations."
STARZZ COACH CANDI HARVEY
On the game:
"I thought the Comets tonight did a super job, especially down the stretch. The second half (Sheryl) Swoopes was determined, we didn't keep our protection as much as we should have, but overall we gave ourselves opportunities to win this basketball game. It was a great game. Super effort from both teams, left everything out there on the floor. I thought that down the stretch, our ability to make the baskets, they got the stops and we didn't. Over the course of the game, we've got to rebound better. Our defense was stalling, but this game was won on the boards by the Comets and we've got to make that adjustment and do a better job of rebounding. We gave them 18 offensive rebounds, and you can't give this team that many opportunities. More than anything, the biggest adjustment we've got to make is controlling the boards. And free throws, too. I thought we were able to come in here and withstand the crowd and gave ourselves actually three opportunities to win. I don't think the crowd bothers us. The Comets bother us and we bother the Comets. I think we feed off the energy more than anything. It's a positive, not a negative. It was a great game."
On the second overtime:
"You've got two warriors with five fouls, Tina (Thompson) and Natalie (Williams) both had played great games and I really thought we needed to pound the ball in the paint and we had some turnovers there down at the other end and gave up some shots. And probably something else that we usually depend on is getting the tip. We didn't get the tip in one of those overtimes and that's usually not something I have to think about, it's just a matter of where we're going to tip the ball. The little things...our game management, and execution on the littlest things in a double overtime, we have to pay attention to details and we need to do a better job. The next game I'm sure is going to be just as close...I feel like we've run a marathon."
On executing after timeouts:
"It's a matter of a team executing after a timeout and I was not pleased with that. We did not come out of a timeout and do the things we asked them to do. We were wondering who was going to go out first, Tina (Thompson) or Nat (Williams), so execution on timeouts has got to be better. It wasn't good tonight."
NATALIE WILLIAMS
On the second overtime:
"I think it's just executing down the stretch, making better decisions, getting on the boards, not allowing them more than one shot."
On the game:
"It was a great game. I'm sure it was very fun to watch, went back and forth, high energy and I think we did a great job defending in regulation, overtime, we struggled a little bit. We've need to go back to what worked for us offensively and defensively and I'm sure we're going to work on that for Tuesday."
On Janeth Arcain and Tina Thompson:
"Houston has three incredible players, so we do the best that we can defending all three of them, double teaming some of them, but Arcain did a great job in the second half and Tina did a great job in the second overtime. It's extremely hard to stop all of them, so we've got to do a lot better job maintaining our composure down the stretch for Tuesday's game."
On their plans for Tuesday:
"We're very frustrated because we don't feel like we get any respect, but Houston's an incredible team and there were many opportunities to win tonight and we didn't take advantage of those opportunities to win the game tonight. Houston's been here many times, they pulled it off tonight, so we just have to come back here Tuesday. I think we've proved that we deserve to be here, we're a very good basketball team, we just want to come back here Tuesday, do the very best we can and come out with a win."
On the play of Sheryl Swoopes:
"I think it's sometimes a jinx when you focus so much on one player defensively, but we gave her her strength a few times and she's just good. She's a great player."
MARIE FERDINAND
On the game:
"We were outplayed. We've got to play harder. It's not about fixing anything, we've just got to play harder. We just weren't functional. It was one of those days."
On the play of Sheryl Swoopes:
"We let her start off with a layup and that was confidence-building right there."
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