Opening statement: The Charlotte Sting are just real excited to be in this position. We feel really good about being able to turn our season around, from a 1-10 start to a 17-4 finish. We're a team that's playing some excellent basketball right now. We go into this series with Cleveland and look forward to the challenge. We're playing good ball and we're relatively healthy at this point and we're looking forward to extending our season.

Q: Can you talk about the momentum your team has gained over the last part of the season?
Donovan: The schedule for us was difficult in that we started off with seven of our first 11 games on the road. Eight of them were against Western Conference opponents. It finished strong with Cleveland, New York and Miami. I'm real proud of this team and what they accomplished, that they were able to stick through the hard times and really look at the big picture, knowing that we could still meet our goals if we took it one day at a time. This a great group of experienced players that just refused to quit and didn't mope about being 1-10.

Q: Did you ever experience this kind of turnaround in your playing days?
Donovan: I don't think I ever have and I don't care to do it again, I might add.

Q: What did your team learn from it?
Donovan: I wouldn't change a thing about it. Even when we were 1-10, it was a situation where I still loved coming to the gym every day. I love these players, their commitment to the game, their commitment to a new staff and what we were asking them to do. Never was it a drudgery. We were disappointed when things weren't going well, but there wasn't a day where I didn't enjoy this job and the challenges we had. It took this group staying positive within themselves and within each other and staying confident that if we kept to the task at hand and really stayed with it that eventually we would get out of the hole we put ourselves in.

Q: What has Allison Feaster brought to the team this year?

Feaster

Donovan: Allison gets my vote for Most Improved Player this season. We fell into a hole here in Charlotte where we didn't have a consistent three-point shooter and that was a hole we needed to fill. Allison brought that to the table immediately. She's continued to work on her game offensively, adding the one-dribble move and mid-range game, which I don't think she necessarily had when she got here. Defensively, she's our best perimeter defender. She adds a lot this squad. She's very valuable to us.

Q: What are your thoughts on hosting Cleveland in the first round of this series?
Donovan: I like the format, to be honest. It's nice to be home first. It's nice that the schedule gave us Cleveland at Gund Arena recently. We won that game in Cleveland by two points, so we have recent experience that was positive in Cleveland. For us, we need to take advantage of having that home game tomorrow night and hopefully build the momentum when we take it to the road.

Q: Did your win in Cleveland have anything to do with the fact that Cleveland had already sewn things up in the East?
Donovan: I really can't answer that. I don't know. I take care of our team, our mental approach. We try to stay competitive and we're hungry every time we get on the floor. It doesn't matter who it's against or what point of the season it is. I can only speak to the Charlotte Sting.

Jones

Stinson

Q: What do you make of the Andrea Stinson vs. Merlakia Jones matchup?
Donovan: It's a great matchup for fans, coaches, players, anyone who enjoys this game. They're both All-Stars, two of the best one-on-one players in the game, and when they go head-to-head, there are going to be some highlight reels at the end of the series.

Q: Can you talk about the development of Tammy Sutton-Brown this season?

Sutton-Brown

Donovan: She's a player we selected in the second round that we had high hopes for. The size she brings to our post game is something we felt would be instrumental this year. I don't know if I anticipated her being our starting post player and really having the impact she had, but it's no small coincidence that when Tammy was inserted into the starting lineup, we went on a six-game winning streak. We think she's going to have a great future with us.