Postgame Quotes/Notes - Houston 75, Storm 58 (Game 3)
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TONIGHT'S NOTES | |||
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ANNE DONOVAN:
On whether she's shocked:
It just felt like we didn’t compete; they steamrolled us early in the game and we never seemed to be able to recover. The effort was there. There was no question we were working hard trying to turn it around. We just got steamrolled on our home floor and that doesn’t happen very often. It surprised me that we could never get a grip. Second half we came out and cut it to 10 and felt real good about the momentum The crowd was in it, with just two minutes off the clock and already we had done that damage. You’ve got to give Houston a ton of credit. They have very veteran players who knew we were struggling and didn’t let their foot off our throat.
(Sheryl) Swoopes, (Dawn) Staley and Tina Thompson were just huge. Ton of experience combined with those players.
On Swoopes:
Triple-double. I don’t know how many of those we get in the league, but that’s special. She was below her (scoring) average tonight, but she’s filling up other columns. So Sheryl finds a way to help her team win a game and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with scoring. The same thing with Dawn Staley, just a ton of leadership. Thompson stepped up big. They are tough. Inside and out. What they are made up of, they stepped up big time.
On the series:
To be drilled on your home court is not how any of us envisioned this. Coming in here with two home games and home-court advantage, we thought we had a great chance to move onto the Western Conference Finals. Again, I have to give Van Chancellor and Houston a ton of credit. They came in here with an ‘A’ game tonight.
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SUE BIRD:
On comparing Thursday's loss and today's loss:
In terms of basketball, this loss beats Thursday, but that is why I was so disappointed after Thursday’s game with a potential Game 3. You have a good Houston team with a lot of veteran players, who once they saw blood were going to go for it. We gave them that window of opportunity. Looking back at the one Thursday night and the one tonight, Thursday still hurts the most. But tonight obviously left a lot to be desired.
On whether she's shocked:
It’s definitely a surreal feeling. We were talking in the locker room about not having practice tomorrow. Everyone is making plans to go home. Life goes on. One of the things that Anne said in the locker room was, ‘Use this to motivate you.’ There are a lot of teams in the WNBA that just said, 'Whew, Seattle lost.' I can tell you that much. That’s what makes it hurt. We had an opportunity to do some great things and defend our title, but we didn’t. We lost.
On the game:
They just jumped on us. Our defense was so bad. I don’t know what happened. They were hitting every shot they made, but they were getting layups in transition, in the zone. And that just gives a team confidence. You saw it. They built a 10-point lead; they built a 20-point lead. The first five minutes of the second half we did a good job to cut it down to about 10 and that was our opportunity. But then we lost it again.
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VAN CHANCELLOR:
On the series:
Under any condition, it’s hard to believe that our team came in here and won two games on the road. I just thought we did an outstanding job defending them. Sheryl Swoopes: 14 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds. We had a great player who played great. I also thought Tina Thompson played her best all year. So two great players played, but it was a total team victory tonight. I would have never thought that we could limit them to less than 60 points. I’m just really pleased.
On the Comets offense:
What we had tonight was great ball movement. When we move the ball, we’re a pretty good offensive basketball team. In Houston we didn’t move the ball and got in trouble and Seattle played well. They made a little run at us in the second half when we made three straight turnovers. We called a timeout and got them settled down and once we got to 13 or 14 points, I thought we were in pretty good shape. We wanted more ball movement to make them play both sides of the court. We did that so we wouldn’t be so selfish with the ball.
On coming back after losing Game 1 in Houston:
We just got tough mentally. After Tuesday night, we realized that what we did that night wasn’t going to get it done. We had to change and share the basketball better. I don’t want to say what, but we made a major, major, major defensive adjustment. I don’t want to say it because we’re playing Sacramento.
I feel very fortunate for us to be moving on. I feel sorry for all the people struggling down in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Seems like a basketball game doesn’t seem like that big of deal.
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On whether she's surprised:
I don’t know if I would say surprised with our performance. I think there was a point in the game when we were up by 15 or 16 points and we said, ‘They’re going to come back. They’re going to make a run. They’re at home, and they have their home crowd. We can’t let up.’ Seattle is a very good team. We came out and tried to jump on them early and try to get them out of their comfort zone. We just never looked back. We really wanted this game. Our main focus was to rebound the ball and not give them any second chance points. Try to move the ball on offense and make them play defense for a longer period of time than we did in Game 2 and I thought that was the biggest difference in the game tonight.
On coming back from losing Game 1:
First of all we have a lot of experience, veterans on this team. Even the young players, we have a lot of confidence in ourselves and each other. After Game 1, we knew if we wanted to advance, we had to win two. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but right now we’re playing very good basketball. I think we’re playing good individually, and as a team we’re playing some incredible basketball. After we won Game 2, we felt it could go either way. We felt like they had more pressure to come out here and win this one, and I think tonight we wanted it a little bit more than they did.
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On how close she is to being back:
I was tired. I was really tired. If I had to put a number on it, I would say about 70 percent. There are times when my legs feel really good and times when they don’t feel good at all. I’ve got to the point where I know how to work with it, so if I’m feeling good I’ll take those shots, but if not 80 percent of my shots will be 10 feet and in.
