RELATED CONTENT

Boxscore Live From Press Row

May 7, 2006

STORM COACH ANNE DONOVAN:

---

On the game:
This New York team is a brand new team and it's two weeks into camp with her trying to change her structure and her personnel. This is what I really expected that we could do. I think more than anything we should be farther along than New York because of our starters. They’re trying to find their groove still. Two more weeks should make us that much better against L.A. on the 21st.

On whether the Storm's performance should be discounted:
I think it was a good test that we passed. We’ll take it with a grain of salt and look to get better.

On whether the poor shooting was more New York's offense or the Storm's defense:
I think we worked hard on our defense. I like to give our defense some credit for really working hard at it. The second quarter we let up and they made us pay for it, but I think we got after it in the second half.

On starting the third quarter well:
You have to look at minutes, who was playing when. We went with our starters to start the third quarter so I think that had a lot to do with it. I think the second quarter motivated us to play better in the second half. We got away from what we did in the first quarter.

On Barbara Turner's performance:
She’s got some growing pains. I think tonight Ashley Battle scored against her a couple of times and she took that to heart. Second half she was a little more focused and got a little more comfortable.

On the impact of the 24-second shot clock:
The game was very choppy. We had a lot of turnovers. Lot of substitutions. I think it’s really hard to read anything into this. Those shot-clock violations, I think for the most part we ran good offense. Early in the game, we settled for outside jump shots which was a problem. Once we settled down and started to execute offensively, we got good looks and the shot clock really didn’t come into play.

GUARD SUE BIRD:

---

On the game:
It’s like every preseason game; there are things you can take from it both negative and positive. Still, our emphasis with this team is defense. I think at times we played really well defensively but we let them get 12 offensive rebounds and get some things in their offense that we’ve been working on in practice. It’s kind of disappointing not to get those things done but that’s what preseason games are for. Hopefully we can work on them and get better.

On whether the poor shooting was more New York's offense or the Storm's defense:
I think it is always a combination of both. Hopefully we were able to get them out of their sets a little bit and make them take tough shots. Some of their shots were with the shot clock running down and hopefully that was because of our defense. We did good things and bad things.

FORWARD LAUREN JACKSON:

---

On her chemistry with Bird:
That’s not going to go anywhere. We’re fine. Anne has put a pretty good team together. Awesome. I know she’s not really happy with the way we played but she’s done a great job as far as chemistry. You can really see tonight that we’ve got a lot of talent. I’ve think we’ve got a good team and we’re going to win a lot of games.

On her health:
I felt really good. Anne is just trying to rest me at the moment and I’m sure during the season it’s going to be different.

GUARD BECKY HAMMON:

---

On the game:
We’ll learn from this. We’re a young team and our youngness showed. We have to come in and focus better. This is a preseason game, so we have time to fix things, but we just didn’t have the intensity and focus that we needed to have. We have to have that. We’re not so much better than people where we can just go out there and play and not be focused. The good thing for us is that it’s fixable and that this doesn’t count.

On her role as a leader in dealing with the loss:
You have to come in knowing that you have to be patient, try to help people and be an enabler for most of these guys. You have to figure out ways to get everybody involved and successful at what they do. That can be tricky and challenging all at the same time. We’re going to come back and try to fix some things, but they kind of steamrolled us. We have to have a little more fight and a little more pride, even if it’s a preseason game. We have to bounce back and not use that as an excuse.

On whether the Storm is that much better than the Liberty:
They’re a good team, but I’m not going to sit here and say they’re 30 points better than us. That team has been playing together for a long time. This team has been playing together for two weeks. You have to give them their respect - we have a lot of respect for them and their coaching staff. They have a lot of good players. Right now, they are a better team than us. Like I said, we’re not going to roll over and die for anyone. We just have to improve. But (Seattle) looks like a team that has been playing together for a long time. They know each other's quirks, their ins and outs and we’re still learning those things. We have to have a quicker learning curve, though, than what we had tonight.