vs. 
POSTGAME QUOTES
JUNE 27, 2004
On the game:
"This win may not have been pretty to anybody, it may not have looked good to anybody, but to me and my psyche, me and mine, that was about as sweet as it can get. I don't care how ... Michelle Snow double-double, (Sheila) Lambert she really struggled (in the first half) and then got back in. The player that really helped us was Lucienne Berthieu. Went in and gave us a good, nice little plug.
"We were really hampered by what we could do
substitution-wise when we lost Dominique Canty. Nice win ... I thought we did
a good job. If you had told me before the game that Sheryl (Swoopes) would
be 4-for-16 and we'd win a game, I would never have believed that.
Scoring 72 points; that's a big win for us. We haven't scored 72 points
without Tina Thompson since I don't know when.”
On the turnaround play of Sheila Lambert:
“I don't understand that (five turnovers in the first half). One of the biggest turnarounds. She had
struggled in Sacramento and struggled tonight in the first half as bad as I've
ever seen her. I've got to give (assistant coach) Kevin (Cook) and
(assistant coach Alisa) Scottie credit for that. I was really discouraged
and about ready to bury her. We got Dominique hurt and she couldn't
go in anymore, and they both came to me and said either we're going to play
Lambert right now or we're going to destroy her. We put her back in the
game, and she made some great plays. We've got to have Sheila Lambert to
win. We almost had five players in double figures and I've said all along that
that's what you're going to need to win in this league."
On the play of Kedra Holland-Corn:
“She had 21 points. She really played
well, I mean extremely ell. She was 6-of-11, 5-for-8 from the three-point line,
4-for-5 in free throws."
On the game:
"Any win we can get nowadays is definitely a great win. We had about 15 turnovers in the first half. It's hard to win a basketball game with that many turnovers in a game, let alone just a half. But we were able to overcome that in the second half and were able to get some other players involved offensively. Defensively I thought the effort was there. We just seem to struggle, especially in the first half. But, the bottom line is that we are coming out with a 'W' and definitely what we wanted to do today."
On her reaction to Kedra Holland-Corn making three 3-point baskets in the beginning of the game:
"It's like a snowball effect. Try to get her the ball to get her to have any open shot possible and she knocked them down. She played real big for us. I think that gave us a lift and the desire to win."
On keeping her turnovers from affecting her game:
"It's affected me big time. If I think about it, I am going to throw it away. The second half, I didn't think about it so much. I made a couple (of turnovers), but I didn't think about it; I just kept rolling so from here on out, we aren't going to think about turnovers. We just play."
On the game:
"I think for the most part, we had the feeling that we had to win this game. We didn't want to go 0-3 for the last three games, so the focus was by any means possible to try and get this victory and we did that. I love playing against Washington. For some reason, I do very well against them."
On starting the game with her first three shots being three-pointers:
"I think how I get started is hitting open shots. So the shorts that I took ere all open shots; no one was on me and I like shooting that way. So, when I receive the ball, I just have a lot of confidence."
On the game:
"We started missing layups. We had opportunities. We had the lead. We have to find a way to finish games off. We just didn't finish the game. That was our problem. We didn't run our sets right down the stretch and they took advantage of that. Costly turnovers and easy stuff we normally make, we just didn't make. We didn't get as many calls as I thought we should get. There were a lot of fouls. They had the advantage playing at home obviously, but the calls weren't even."
On the free throw discrepancy:
"I don't think they were being more aggressive, but I think the referees were being more aggressive. Truth be told, they were horrendous. We have no excuses. We still have to play. I think they went to the basket a little stronger than we did, but when we did go, we didn't get the calls and they did and that hurt us as well. There's no excuses, we still had a chance to win the game, but they didn't help us any."
On the game:
"Today was one of those games where we beat ourselves by putting them at the free throw line too much and not converting on the other end. In the first half, their press really caught us off guard and we weren't able to handle it. But, in the second half we did a good job of getting the ball in the front court and we were scoring inside and then all of a sudden we started throwing the ball around the court, getting turnovers and weren't finishing inside like we had early on, and that killed us down the stretch. We were able to get a lot of turnovers, but when you do, you have to score and capitalize on the other end. We were up and just didn't continue playing with that same hunger and intensity. Against a veteran team like Houston, even though they aren't as strong as they have been in the past, they've got a lot of great players and players trying to find their nitch, so they are going to compete and play hard. For example, today Sheila Lambert had 11 rebounds, and that shouldn't happen, and it comes back to haunt you."
On the play of Kedra Holland-Corn:
"That's the mark of a good team. You shut down their star player and other players step up. My hat goes off to them today."
On the game:
"They shot a lot of free throws and we didn't. That was a big difference. They were in the double bonus mid-way through the second half. We played solid aggressive defense, but I guess that was too aggressive. We have players that attack inside and are very strong and we didn't shoot free throws. There's nothing we can do about it. We have to play anyway and I thought they capitalized on some of the things we did. They got a lot of hustle plays. Lambert did a good job on the boards and Holland-Corn shot the ball well tonight. Houston is a quality team. There's no question about it. They've got veteran leadership. Tina Thompson didn't play, but when stand out players don't play, others step up, and that's what happened. Berthieu stepped up and filled the void inside."
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
