 Guard Betty Lennox helped the Storm force Game 3 with 27 points Sunday. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty |
During the Storm's Western Conference Finals series against the Sacramento Monarchs, Coach Anne Donovan generally tried to go low-key with her players, arguing they were tired of hearing from her (she even brought in Sonics & Storm Chairman Howard Schultz to deliver a pre-game speech before Game 2 of the series). Now, Donovan is going in a different direction.
"There's actually a lot of talk going on right now, trying to keep everybody focused on one goal and that we're right here at the pinnacle where everybody in this organization wanted to play," Donovan said. "Player, coach, trainer, it's something we've all fought for. It's a moment that nobody can take for granted. It's a one-track mind right now, and that is to win a WNBA Championship.
"Before the game last night, I tried to crack a joke before we went on the floor, because I could see they really understood their backs were against the wall, and it was almost too much hype, too much nervousness. We really tried to calm them down. Tomorrow it helps, we have a 6:00 game, so we have a shootaround, we have a routine. Yesterday, we didn't have any of that."
Bird also emphasized the importance of a consistent routine and not allowing the magnitude of the game to become a distraction.
"You don't want to change anything," she said. "That's what got you here. You can't try to come out and do things you wouldn't normally do or do too much. You've got to stay within yourself, stay within the game plan. That's how you win. "At the same time, you might play a little harder, realizing you don't have anything left, it's for a championship. So I think the preparation is the same, but when you step on that court, I think you give a little extra." The Storm's other star, forward Lauren Jackson, was facing the stark reality that, win or lose, the Storm's season will be over tomorrow night.
"I can't even comprehend the fact that after tomorrow's game, we're not going to be together for another six months," said Jackson, who called the playoffs "a blur". "I'm struggling with that at the moment. I've just to go and play and take it as another game."
"I don't feel as much pressure because we know what to expect," Jackson added. "We've played them twice, we know what's going to happen."
The right tone to strike, of course, depends on the player.
"When Betty (Lennox) is amped, she plays well like that," Bird said. "Me personally, I'm better when I'm under control."
"I thought we were a little over-hyped early because of the crowd," said Connecticut Coach Mike Thibault. "I doubt it will be the same thing tomorrow, because we've already been through that experience. I don't think our players will be as anxious at the start of tomorrow's game as we were yesterday."
Thibault seemed to be setting up his team, which was widely picked to finish last in the Eastern Conference, in a no-lose situation tomorrow night, pointing out that the pressure is more on the Storm as the home team and thus the favorite in Game 3.
"I said to my team, 'If I had told you last May 22 that we'd be playing on Oct. 12 and we'd have one game to win the championship, would you take it?' Well yeah, they'd all take it," Thibault said. "Here we are doing it."
The primary job for coaches on both sides may be motivation, because at this point of the series there aren't many changes to be made.
"There's not a play that we call that they don't know, and vice versa," said Donovan. "We know their personality, we know their strengths, so it's a matter of executing, making sure we step up."
"Both teams will try to look at the film and make a couple of adjustments," Thibault said after Game 2. "I don't think you can make anything major. I think it comes down to who comes out and handles the pressure of the game better."
This morning, Thibault felt the same way.
"I don't see any reason to do that," he said with regards to making a change in the matchups defensively after Lennox torched the Sun for 27 points Sunday. "Basically, Betty got her shots against four different players yesterday. Sometimes we switched out, sometimes we didn't. When you look at the film … some people made note of the matchup on Lindsay (Whalen). Well, (Lennox) had about eight or ten of the 27 on Lindsay. She had about six more against Nykesha (Sales), she had six more on somebody else. People tend to overreact when they say it must be that matchup."
Thibault, who was in the ear of the referees throughout Sunday's game, also set up the officiating as a key to the loss.
"We lost by two points in a game where they shot eight more free throws than us," Thibault said.
"I think the physical play of this series has been highly overrated," he added.
By 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night, the talking will be over on both sides. Once the ball goes up, as Thibault said, it becomes an issue of which team reacts better to the situation, which players step up and etch their names into the WNBA record books like Sales did with 32 points in a losing cause in Game 2 and Detroit's Ruth Riley did a year ago, scoring 27 points and earning Finals MVP honors as her Shock brought home the franchise's first championship against the Los Angeles Sparks. Who will be a hero? Who will be a goat? For all the analysis that can be done, all the preparations that are made on both sides, only 40 minutes of basketball will tell.
Donovan summed up the certain degree of powerlessness a coach feels in that situation.
"Forty minutes?" she said. "I've waited an entire lifetime of coaching for 40 minutes?"
Neither team would have it any other way.
