Postgame Quotes and Notes: Mercury vs. Fever - Aug. 8, 2009

(On Ketia Swanier’s Play)
“She’s playing well. She gives us great energy. We are going to spread out the minutes for the stretch run and Ketia’s a great point guard. She’s definitely playing well. She does what’s best for the team. I’m looking for her to just play her game. She knows her game better then I do. She knows what she’s got to do.”

(On the Rest of the Season)
“We are still very short term. We still have a large margin of improvement to make. We are still pretty far from where we need to be if we want to win a championship.”

(On Playing Better as a Team Going Further)
“We have to do some better things. We have to clean up some things on defense. We have to make sure we execute things better on offense and not give a team like Indiana as many extra opportunities as we allowed them to have tonight.”

(On DeWanna Bonner’s play so far this season)
“She’s having a tremendous season, everybody has to realize that she has a deadly up and under if she doesn’t get what she wants going that way she’s coming back the other way. Her speed, her quickness, I think she’s going to be a player to deal with in this league for a long time.”

(On if they were worried about running out of gas against a run team)
“I don’t think so, coach has done a great job of keeping the minutes balanced, and giving us rests when we need them. Each individual is self-less enough to say, ‘hey take me out if they’re tired’ so I think it’s very big for our team to have self-less players, and if you can’t get the job done, know that someone else is going to come in and contribute.”

(On if good defense always beats good offense)
“It does for us, we could have the worst offense ever, but our defense is something that we know we can rely on and we take a lot of pride in that.”