“Obviously Phoenix outplayed us. It was the style of game they wanted to play. We never played the way we wanted to play. They answered our runs with too easy of scores. They are a talented team and they played their game. That’s what happens…you lose by 12. They’re a better team and they won playing the way they wanted to play.”

“The defense sets the tone. We scored 34 points in a quarter and were still outscored. I’ve never seen that happen. Give them credit. They played the way they wanted to play and we never got control.”

Guard Becky Hammon

“We didn’t handle the zone that great and we came out and struggled offensively. We dug ourselves a hole and never recovered. We had a nice push at the end, but we didn’t have enough in the tank to come back.”

“We missed some shots that we normally make. The ball just didn’t go in the hole. It was one of those nights.”

Forward Sophia Young

“They (Phoenix) are as good on offense as they are on defense. They were crashing the boards and our shots weren’t falling. It’s something we can correct and work on.”

“No excuses. They just beat us. Give them credit.”

Mercury Head Coach Paul Westhead

“You always want to get out to a good start especially when you’re on the road. You know, you don’t want to get yourself fighting an up hill battle and we had that problem in our last game. We’re down 17 in the second half in Sacramento at home. So we kind of talked briefly about it.

(On getting to fast to early)
“No, we don’t mind at all. We just don’t let tem get on a scoring run and come up short.

(When the Sliver Stars went 3-19, if they missed a good opportunity)
“I thought we did some good things. They got a whole bunch of offence rebounds, but our coaches were saying that the ball was being tapped out 8 to 10 feet to the foul line. It’s pretty hard for me to knock my defenders, when that happens. We could of exploded out in that quarter but we didn’t.”
Tangela Smith

(On getting the ball in the paint)
“We definitely wanted to get off to a great start and I wanted to be aggressive. So my teammates found me inside. The main thing was to get out to a good start, because San Antonio is such a great team.”

(On her scoring slump as of late and then having a great scoring game tonight)
“I just wanted to focus a little bit and concentrate. I did a little extra shooting and I knew I was taking good shots, but they were just not falling for me.”