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On the key to the game:
You look at our scoring tonight and it was very balanced. And that shows they were very determined, had individual confidence in their own play and as a group how good we are.
On Sue Bird's confidence:
8-for-9 field goals, 3-for-3 on threes, 4-for-4 from the foul line, eight assists. Sue is playing some great basketball and we needed her tonight again. Lauren (Jackson) is obviously not at full strength. Sue carried us in those three games, even though we didn’t come out with wins. She was the one that carried us and it was nice to see it continue.
On Jackson's performance:
She looked a little off, but we’re a much better team with her in there. Offensively, defensively, we’re much more confident.
On the big lead feeling precarious:
We know that the dangerous teams are the ones who run in transition and score threes. This team running transition like they do, we knew we couldn’t let up. It’s definitely playoff time. You can feel that sense of urgency. From us and Detroit.
On tonight's game being a must-win:
I think that is easy to say. If we hadn’t won, I wouldn’t say it was a must-win. But now that we’ve won, I’ll say it was a must-win. For us, we had to play better, we had to get on track; we had to do a better job defensively, which we did. Other than transition and offensive boards, I thought our defense was pretty solid. It was a must-get-better must-win. This team remembers five losses in a row last year and missing the playoffs by half a game. There is a sense of urgency with this crew.
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On balancing scoring and passing:
The one thing that I try to do with this team is do what is needed. Some nights I’m going to be passing a lot, and some nights I’m going to be shooting. Betty (Lennox) really carried us in the first half offensively, and in the second half I got some open looks.
On scoring more in Jackson's absence:
When Lauren is not here, we’re losing 20 points and 10 rebounds. I think everybody had to pick up their game a little bit, especially on offense, to make up for that. We’ve been scoring pretty well the last three games and now we’re able to add Lauren and hopefully everybody’s offense will increase. I know there are only so many touches that each player can get. We played really well offensively.
On getting down 18-5 early:
I think we gave them a lot of easy baskets. We weren’t scoring and we were letting them score way too easy. Anne told us during one of the timeouts that we needed to stop them in transition.
On the team's sense of urgency:
Losing three in a row gets your attention really quick. Especially this time of year. We just need to take it one game at a time. We’re in really good position if we just keep winning.
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