Adubato

Opening statement: Obviously, we were really competitive this year. Miami won one game in Madison Square Garden and we won one in Miami. They won the series, two games of three, they beat us in the opening game. I think the teams are pretty well balanced.

Each team, of course, has strengths and weaknesses. I think Miami's strength is their size, with (Elena) Baranova up front and (Ruth) Riley, (Marlies) Askamp and (Kristen) Rasmussen, which gives them the ability to go big. I think they have some excellent individual players in Baranova, (Sandy) Brondello and Sheri Sam.

As far as the Liberty, we've gotten good performances recently from Crystal Robinson and Vickie Johnson and (Teresa) Weatherspoon, and of course, Tari Phillips has been our most consistent scorer throughout the whole year. She's nursing a sore ankle, but she'll be ready to go by Friday. And Tamika Whitmore and Becky Hammon, I'm hoping will shoot the ball the way they normally do throughout the season. I think it will be a very interesting and very exciting series.

Q: What do you make of seven of the eight playoff teams being original WNBA teams?
Adubato: I don't know, maybe it's because of the experience, because teams have a nucleus and they've built around it and gotten stronger, and they have the experience they need to get here.

Q: What does your experience afford your team?

Sam

Brondello

Baranova

Adubato: Well, I think you have to really question what you mean by experience. We've been to the Championship Series the last two years, so we do have WNBA experience, but in actuality, if you look at the Miami team, you will see that they have players that have been in a lot of championships. Baranova is one of the best Russians in the world, and she's been to the Olympics and won championships. Brondello is a veteran player who may be the second-best player in Australia and who's been to championships. Both of them are like, 29, 30 years old, so it's not like we're talking 21 years old. Sheri Sam, in the other league, has veteran experience, and Debbie Black is 35 years old, played for a long time.

So they're not your typical team that gets into a championship, even though Coach (Ron) Rothstein did a great job with them this year, they're not your typical young team that gets into the playoffs for the first time and has to worry about getting jitters. They have a lot of players who have played in tremendously big games and experienced the pressures of winning championships.

Q: What would you tell your team if you lost a game that would have given you home-court advantage?
Adubato: If you read the comments in USA Today, I think that Brondello made a statement that they're very capable of beating New York, and because they blew a game and lost the home court, they can't let that affect them. They've been able to win two out of three games against us this year. They won in Madison Square Garden, so that's the approach that Coach Rothstein will probably take.

As we all know, it's a big question as to whether the home court is that big an advantage in this league, because you play the first game on the opponent's court, who has the lesser record. So we'll have to see how it turns out. They have a game in Miami, that's their home court, they protected it pretty well this year, and then they come to Madison Square Garden after that. I don't think you can let last night's game affect your determination or your understanding of what our series is going to be all about.

Q: Can you talk about the matchup at point guard between Teresa Weatherspoon and Debbie Black?

Black

Weatherspoon

Adubato: First of all, that's always a great matchup between Debbie Black and Spoon. They're both fierce competitors, they're extremely quick, they're leaders of their teams, they direct the team, they direct the offense. It's always exciting for the fans to see. To me, the energy that they show in the games that they compete with each other, playing 94 feet, is just incredible that they're able to walk after the game, with their talent and as hard as they play.

Q: How will Marlies Askamp's injury (ruptured left Achilles' tendon) affect the series?

Askamp

Adubato: With Askamp, it should hurt them because they won't have the size that they had, because when they have Baranova at 6-5 and Riley at 6-5, they had another 6-5 player that they could bring in in Askamp. But really, Riley has replaced Askamp as a starter, and has gotten more minutes, more opportunities and done a lot more scoring than Askamp over the course of the year. I think the last time I looked, Askamp was playing 11 minutes a game.

Rasmussen

So they'll have to plug in Rasmussen, who isn't as big, but she'll do whatever she needs to do. She hustles and plays on the glass and gives them a little more versatility. I think the biggest thing with them is the Brondello-Baranova one-two punch, great players from their respective countries who can score inside and out and can create their own shot, and Sheri Sam, who's having an All-Star year as a shooting forward. They also can play a big team, with Brondello at the point, Sam at the two and Rasmussen and Baranova and Riley. That's a very deep team. So they're very versatile, and they've got a lot of size.

Q: What are your feelings on the one-two playoff format?
Adubato: I've never agreed with this format, and it's been brought up every year. My feeling has always been that if you play all season to get the home-court advantage, you should play the first game on your home floor, and if you protect your home floor -- we're 13-3 in the Garden this year -- then you go to the opposing team's court, and if you lose, you know you're coming back home with a chance to win the series on your home floor. The way it is now, I think L.A. experienced it last year, they had to go to Houston the opening game, even though they had a better record, most teams play better at home, so they got the win and Houston was able to turn around and beat them again.

I really think the format should be changed, but I don't think the league's going to do that. We talked about it. To me, we've done it two years in a row. Last year, we went to Cleveland the opening game and lost, then had to win the two in Madison Square Garden. The year before, we went to Charlotte and lost the opener and had to win two. When you come back home to play the first game at home in the playoffs in front of your home crowd, facing elimination, that puts tremendous pressure on your team, where I think when you have the other format, you have a deserving home-court advantage because you play the first game in front of your home crowd on your home court.

Q: How tough is it to play in Miami?
Adubato: Well, we played twice, and we did win one down there. So we lost the opening game and won the second one, then they came to Madison Square Garden and beat us. So both teams have proven they can win on the other team's court, but again, to me, if you do get home-court advantage, it would be real if you played your first game at home.

Q: What one Miami player do you need to neutralize to win the series?
Adubato: That's hard for me to say, because Sheri Sam is having a great year shooting the basketball, especially in the second half of the season. But I think Baranova is probably their most versatile player and the player who causes a lot of problems for you, because at 6-5, she can post up and she can shoot the three and they can utilize her inside and out, they run isolations for her, they pick and pop with her, she shoots the ball up high and she can go to the basket, so her versatility inside, I think, makes it difficult to stop her. She would be the one player, I would say, who's the most difficult to stop on their team.

Q: Which one player do you think Miami is looking to stop on your team?
Adubato: I think they're probably looking at Tari Phillips or Crystal Robinson, one or the other. Tari Phillips, of course, inside in the post position, or Crystal Robinson and her perimeter shooting.