Notes & Quotes, Lynx Beat Wings, 91-83


Minnesota Lynx 91, Dallas Wings 83

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve

On tonight’s game…

“it was an interesting second half, especially the fourth quarter. Unfortunate because I thought we played some really good basketball for, certainly the first half. Third quarter was pretty good as well and then fourth quarter, we just didn’t look very good. We shot I think 24 percent in the second half overall. Maya was 2-for-11, Syl was 2-for-6; we had ten turnovers in the second half after having just three (in the first half). I’m happy to be talking about this after a win as something that we talked about. We didn’t accomplish what we wanted to accomplish in terms of keeping them off the fouling, but we did get there.

On highs and lows of play…

“It’s a trend, you know, that’s what I told our team we won the game and we should be happy about that, but I don’t want them to be satisfied because that could haunt you. To play so well and to be so bad we can actually kind of, you know, this is not the first time this is brought to our attention. We’ve been talking about this and this is the first game that we made a considerable effort to get to the fourth quarter and finish strong. Some of it is even finishing strong at practice. If you finish strong at practice, I think it helps you finish strong in the fourth quarter and we’re not seeing that at practice. It is something that we’re trying to be mindful of and it’s something that we’re trying to get better at.”

Lynx Forward Maya Moore

On Danielle Robinson playing with starting five…

“She’s building and understanding the pace. Sometimes we push it, sometimes we call plays. We have one of the best play callers ever, so just for her to know in those moments of when we need to settle it down and get a play in, or pushing the pace when we did down those stretches and we got to the free-throw line. Just continuing to take care of the ball for anybody who has the ball in their hands, so we can give this really offensive team a chance to score.

On Cheryl Reeve’s 200th career win…

“She’s been so dedicated to this team and dedicated to this league. We are just grateful to have her, someone this passionate, a motivator, how she leads on and off the court. Two-hundred wins, looking from the outside, you’re like oh two-hundred, but it’s really two-hundred wins in the toughest league in the world. We’re just happy we get to celebrate her and her commitment to the team. Just embarrassing her a little bit in the locker room because she doesn’t like to talk about herself, but we made sure that she knew she was doing it.”

Lynx Center Sylvia Fowles

On the second matchup of the season against Liz Cambage…

“Same old, same old. A lot of bodies there getting banged up, hit, very physical, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

On her defensive play at this point in the season…  

“Defensively, I’m exactly where I need to be. We’re just trying to make sure that everything else is connecting offensively as well.

On Danielle Robinson’s play with the first unit… 

“She always plays good. She brings the energy, she goes out there and gets her hands on some balls, she runs everybody to death and I think she’s doing a good job.”

Wings Head Coach Fred Williams 

On Liz Cambage’s struggle in the second half…

“I think trying to over force and then a lot of tip passes, turnovers. I mean I think they hurt us. We stuck to one side of trying to get the ball in then reverse it. I thought the second half we did a much better job and were able to get more shots and more touches.”

On the fourth quarter…

“I just think the energy level picked up, you know, we told them in the huddle to keep plugging along and get our energy level up. We hit some shots, made some plays and in the first half they went to the line maybe four times and I told them at half ‘you better be ready because that may change’ and then they went to the line probably 25 more times. We just didn’t take care of the ball when we needed to down that third quarter stretch, especially in that first quarter.”’

Wings Guard Skylar Diggins-Smith

On Sylvia Fowles…

“She’s the MVP and they have four more all-stars around her. She’s the MVP for a reason and when she gets in position she holds it she starts it before the ball crosses half court. Who are you going to double off of? You can’t leave Maya, can’t leave Seimone and they have a lot of capable shooters coming off the bench, so you’ve got to do the best you can.”

On fourth quarter change…

“We stepped it up on defense, got that look out of our eyes and stepped it up. When we play like that, I think we’re one of the hardest teams to play with. When we’re able to get into our game, running our cuts hard and playing desperate and that’s how we’ve got to be for 40 minutes.” 

Wings Center Liz Cambage

On playing against Sylvia Fowles tonight… 

“I was just happy she didn’t get a record on my head tonight. I love Sylvia, she’s a great soul, she plays hard and I respect her game. At the end of it our defensive wasn’t there in the first quarter and that’s what really hurt us tonight.” 

On what happened in the second half…

“I’m not really sure. When I play, I play really out of body. I am not sure what’s going on, my point guards are like what plays do you want to run. I really don’t know. I’m just like in this weird robotic mode. I have to watch film to know what actually went on. I feel like we had more movement, we were really stagnant in the first half, we hit more outside shots.”