CHARLOTTE STING | CLEVELAND ROCKERS

Head Coach Anne Donovan
We had a real difficult night on Saturday night. It took a lot of poise, a lot of focus and a lot of concentration in the last two days to make some adjustments to come back here tonight and take care of business. We knew had to take care of the backcourt. Everybody focused on that and that was certainly a key tonight for us. Our defense really stepped up and we found our offense again. It was a good night for the Sting.

The biggest (difference tonight) was for sure the backcourt. We just knew we had to take care of the backcourt. That was our extreme focus all the way down the line. When you look at that type of rebounding edge, that's the edge they had Saturday, so we knew we had to turn the tables on that. Then offensively, we had to work within that zone to be able to get ourselves better-looking shots. I think we did that tonight.

Allison struggled a little bit and I think Tonya recognized that and came in and gave us a different look on the perimeter. Overall, we had 30 points from our bench tonight. I think Tonya came in ready to go, Shalonda came in ready to go. They knew we needed someone to step up offensively. Tonya is a veteran player. She played as a starter in Phoenix and has come to the Sting and taken on a different role for this team. She's been a great player to come off the bench. We don't lose a thing when Tonya comes into the game. We gain momentum on nights like tonight.

We had an active backcourt, it was as simple as that. Sometimes it would be a clean rebound and an offensive putback, sometimes it was just a tip play and we were in a better position to score. The hustle plays -- we were determined to make sure that they went our way tonight. This team got down to business. We knew we had to play better basketball than we did Saturday. They rose to the challenge and a difficult challenge it was.

Cleveland is a fantastic team, a very good defensive team. We knew we had to work for every possession, so there was extreme focus on our part coming in. They had 11,000 of some of the best fans in the league and a very solid team, so you know when you play a team like Cleveland that you've got to be ready to go, you've got to be focused. You can't lose your confidence and you can't lose your momentum once you get it. We made the most of it once we got our run going.

There's no doubt about it that early in the season we struggled with consistent post play. Tammy brings to us a presence down in the low post. She forces teams to really concentrate and guard her. Sometimes that frees Tammy up for her own offense, other times it creates defenses sagging into the paint and frees up our perimeter more. So, there's no coincidence there at all. Tammy has really worked hard on her game since she came to training camp. When inserted her into the starting lineup, her confidence was high at that point, her teammates confidence in her was high at that point and she became an integral part of what we were doing.

This is a team that has worked hard and we have turned it around. It's not a temporary thing. This is a team that is to be reckoned with. We have beaten a lot of good teams. We have beaten everybody in the Eastern Conference, including Cleveland before this series. We are a serious basketball team that has a great starting group, a great bench and tremendous leadership with Andrea and Dawn. They have been down this road before, they have been through playoffs before and they're hungry. They know what it takes to be a championship team. We've set our goals high and we're a confident group that we can reach our goals.

We played both (New York and Miami) of them well, but we struggled with them at different times also. We have had recent success against both of them, so it doesn't matter to us who we face.

Stinson

Guard Andrea Stinson
I think we started out playing well in the 1-10 start, but we just had to make the adjustments on defense. Our offense was there, but defensively we weren't stopping people, we weren't shutting anybody down. Like coach said, the rebounding has been big for us. We totally turned it around. Once we got the job done on the boards, I think it made us better and gave us confidence that we could win.

Edwards

Guard Tonya Edwards
We have been confident all season long and it was just a matter of us doing the little things tonight to get us over the hump. They humiliated us Saturday on the boards, so it was due time for payback (tonight).

I just wanted to come out and play aggressive. I personally let the team down in the last game and the first game by not going out and playing aggressive and doing just the little things out there on the floor. Tonight, I wasn't going to hold anything back. I was just going to play hard.

Enis

Forward Shalonda Enis
We have a great first five. When they go out there and give it all they got, they can't lose anything when they come off the floor. Our coach always tell us that when they come off the floor, we have to have their backs. I think the last couple of games that our bench hasn't been coming up. We just said to ourselves that we were going to do it. To win this game, they needed us to come up and be effective. That's just what we had in our minds and that's just what we did tonight.

Sutton-Brown

Center Tammy Sutton-Brown
That will just come with playing each game and learning. If I do get in that situation, I just have learn how to play with the fouls. I think tonight that I proved to myself that I can do that.

CLEVELAND ROCKERS

Hughes

Head Coach Dan Hughes
Obviously, it was a hard fought game. You look at the intensity of the game and you have two teams really going at each other. I thought the game was won by Charlotte on the boards, especially on the offensive boards. I could see us attempting to try to block out and try to get space. We didn't have the space to rebound. They (Charlotte) are strong in that area as far as physical strength. I thought that was probably the telling statistic. If you look at it, you kind of had a championship-type game, going back and forth. But they (Charlotte) dominated that area of the game (rebounding).

My hat's off to Charlotte. They're playing as well as anybody right now, certainly in the Eastern Conference. I'm really proud of this group that I had. We're all sorry to the people of Cleveland that we're not playing more basketball. Because with the response of this community, I can't tell you how joyous that is to watch and how they celebrated this team. We're just sorry we're not going to play more basketball for them. We will be back. I think people realize that this is a very young team. There is a lot of good basketball to be watched with this basketball team. They scored in the paint readily. The offensive rebounding obviously contributed a lot. But they also drove it into that area. We went to the zone (defense), but had difficulty rebounding out of the zone. We had some difficulty when they put it on the floor and drove to the basket. They're penetration hurt us in that regard. My analysis of watching it was we did an outstanding job through the first shot. The shots they made were tough when they did make them. But we didn't complete the play. We couldn't play in transition because we simply couldn't get the ball off the glass.

Jones

Guard Merlakia Jones
We really fought hard tonight we just didn't get that final box out to keep control of the ball. But this team has a long way to go. I am not holding my head down and I told my teammates not to hold their heads down because we fought through adversity all year and we just came up short. We'll go back during the off season we'll regroup and get better individually and we'll come back next season and try to do it again.

We fought each and every day to reach the championship and it just didn't happen, but I believe in my teammates. I will continue to work on my weaknesses in the off season and try again. I still have a lot of basketball ahead of me. I've been able to make it through injury free and so has my teammate. We have a great chemistry. Everyone will come back next year and we'll add a few more pieces to the puzzle. It is heart breaking, but we've been through it before.