Postgame Notes:

• In her first WNBA Finals game, Mystics forward Ariel Atkins finished with 23 points, passing DeWanna Bonner (15 on 9/29/2009 vs. Indiana) for the most points by a rookie in a game 1 in WNBA history.
• With her 23 points, Atkins pushed her total to 113 points so far in the 2018 Playoffs, passing Maya Moore (110, 2011) for most points all-time by a rookie in a single postseason.
• With the win, Seattle has now won six straight WNBA Finals games (2004, 2010, 2018) and has won five straight Finals games at home (2004, 2010, 2018). Both marks are the most in Finals history.
• Natasha Howard played her 15th Finals game, passing Tamika Catchings and Briann January for 12th all-time in Finals history.
• Sue Bird moved into a tie with Katie Douglas for 17th on the all-time Finals assists list with seven dimes in game 1.

Postgame Quotes: 

Washington Mystics

Question: The turnovers in the first 11, 12 minutes, what contributed to that, and how do you clean that up going forward?

ELENA DELLE DONNE: I mean, you’ve got to give credit to Seattle. They’ve got a lot of length on defense, they came out super aggressive, started trapping Kristi from the start in pick-and-rolls. We have to be able to exploit that, exploit them being overaggressive, take care of the ball. You can’t turn the ball over with this team or they get out and get lay-ups and threes. That definitely wasn’t a good start for us.

Question: Ariel, you were minus 18 in fast break points, I think minus 20 in points in the paint. How do you get better in those areas going into Game 2?

ARIEL ATKINS: I think just take care of the basketball better. I think that’s one of the main things that we’re going to be talking about tomorrow.

Question: Elena, what’s that match-up with Natasha Howard like for you, and what do you think you can do to get going a little more offensively?

ELENA DELLE DONNE: I think our whole offense was a little bit stagnant. Instead of moving the ball and getting it side to side, we just kind of hanging on to it on one side and staring at each other. We’ve got to create way more movement in our offense, make it difficult for them and make them chase us around a little bit like they do with us. We’ve got to dive more, we’ve got to go back door on over plays. I think just as a whole, we were way too stagnant.

Question: Ariel, what was this atmosphere like for you, coming cross country, playing in obviously a packed arena, kind of a frenzy? How do you think you handled it overall as a team?

ARIEL ATKINS: I think it’s an awesome atmosphere for women’s basketball. We’ll handle it better when we come back.

Question: Elena, how do you feel physically? How close to 100 percent do you feel right now?

ELENA DELLE DONNE: We can talk about my knee after this series. Excuses are for losers. If I wanted to be 100 percent, I wouldn’t have come back. I knew coming into this thing I was going to have to figure out a different way to play. It might not be the same basketball I’ve been playing all season, but I still feel like I can impact this game. My teammates like Ariel, she’s got my back, she can carry me on the offensive end, but we’ve got to be better, and we’ll find a way. We’ve got to watch some film and figure it out.

MIKE THIBAULT: Basically we got our butts kicked in every phase of the game. The only bright spot probably for us tonight was our bench as a whole, and Ariel Atkins probably wasn’t too phased by the whole experience, but we were a step behind. They were quicker than us, made us pay for every defensive mistake for a stretch, and we made enough of them to help them. Give them credit, they were ready to go, and we haven’t played a game like this since right before the All-Star Game. We played Connecticut and this looked really similar. The good part of the series,
we get a chance to recoup and regroup tomorrow and come back and play better on Sunday.

Question: I think you had eight turnovers in the first 11, 12 minutes of the game. You mentioned Ariel Atkins not being phased by the moment. Do you attribute that to some nerves or jitters from the rest of the team?

MIKE THIBAULT: I don’t know if it was nerves or jitters or understanding how hard it is to play in a series like this on the little things like getting open and casual passes. The passes, they’re never going to get there in games like this unless you work a little harder. We need better screening, we needed better footwork to get open. I just thought we were kind of thinking that we were going to get what we wanted on offense if we just moved the ball a little bit, and they just saw passes. I think that that leads to getting their energy going in the building. They got some lay-ups, and you dig yourself a hole right off the bat with that kind of thing. I think the turnovers hurt us, and then we made probably three or four glaring defensive mistakes in the first quarter, particularly in how we were going to play Natasha Howard. She cut behind us — she does that to a lot of teams. That’s why she’s had the year we had. I just don’t think we did a very good job on her. She set a tone for them, and then Jewell Loyd got going as the half went along. She had a terrific first half. I think she was 6 for 8 from the floor, and most of the year she scored 16 or 17 against us, but not like that. I mean, she had to work a lot harder to get them, and I just don’t think we did a good job tonight.

Question: Points in the paint were 46-28, fast breaks was 18-0. What about those errors that kind of got to you?

MIKE THIBAULT: Well, if you don’t get any defensive stops, you’re not going to get any fast break points, and we didn’t stop any of their shots. They were close to 60 percent for the game. But the points in the paint were coming from lay-ups and things like that. They weren’t coming from them just coming down and putting them back in the basket and posting up, it was drives right down the lane in transition and getting back and those kind of things.

Question: How do you get Elena Delle Donne going?

MIKE THIBAULT: Yeah, they’ve done that match-up a fair amount of the time. It takes pressure off Breanna Stewart by doing that. They try to keep length on her, and Natasha is really long, and then you put Toliver do some switching on us, try to keep from getting mismatches and pick-and-roll situations. We’re going to have to find other ways to create some mismatches. I mean, we’ll watch the film. It’s hard to say right now. They didn’t do anything that we didn’t anticipate. We just didn’t handle it really well.

Seattle Storm

DAN HUGHES: Well, I thought our defense helped our offense today in a lot of ways. We were able to create opportunities to play in transition as well as in the half court. It was one of those days we shot the ball well and Washington didn’t. That’s going to happen in regard to it. But any time you’re at home and you get a lead, that’s something you want to have. So obviously pleased to get out of the gate and win Game 1.

 Question: Dan, what were you able to do defensively a little bit to bother Elena in particular?

DAN HUGHES: I don’t know if we really bothered her. It was one of those days they didn’t shoot the ball well. I mean, there was a couple times I turned to the bench and I just kind of said, well, we dodged a bullet there in regard to it. Now, I do think our focus was good. I think our rotations were strong. We were doing that. But it was one of those days that they just kind of missed some looks that they probably won’t miss Game 2 at that point. Whenever we can rebound well, we do become a better basketball team. We are able to really play in transition, which is one of the better things we do, as well as half court.

Question: What were you able to do early? I think they had eight turnovers the first 11, 12 minutes of the game.

DAN HUGHES: Well, just sped them up a little bit to be honest with you, made them play a little faster. They’re such a good team. When they’re able to get to their spots and they move the ball, there’s a great beauty to how they play, and we just tried to take away some of those kind of rhythm catches where the ball moves from side to side because they’re exceptional at that, and I thought we did a good job of being aggressive, forcing it out a little bit, maybe a deflection here or there. So it helped them not quite get the rhythm that they wanted.

Question: The other night in Game 5, Jewell kind of told you to keep her on the bench when Sammy was playing so well. Tonight Jewell comes out and has a fabulous game. Talk about her performance tonight and what you saw from her.

DAN HUGHES: Well, it’s amazing how many times when you’re thinking about and you’re unselfish like she was in Game 5 how you are rewarded the next time, especially a good player. I mean, there’s a lot of microscopes, people looking and digesting where we are right now. If you watched Jewell all year, you knew it’s just a matter of time that she’s going to impact the game. But what has happened to Jewell Loyd, the message that I received this year, she’s doing things across the team, not just scoring. She’s rebounding, assisting. From a defensive standpoint, she’s much, much more a pivotal part of what we do. So there’s a totality to it. As long as she’s bringing those other things out, I have absolutely no doubt that that is there, that the offense is also going to come along with it.

Question: Jewell, you got an early lay-up off a steal. Did that kind of help get you going do you think?

JEWELL LOYD: Of course. Especially how I shot the ball last series. You want to see the ball go early. But I was really just focused on defense and trying to get that going first and then worry about my offense later. That’s just a tribute to our team defense because I think someone else got the steal and threw it up, so that’s our team defense.

Question: Generally how did you guys feed off the steals you were able to generate tonight?

BREANNA STEWART: I think in general, we focused on our defense, and when you get your defense going, it motivates our offense. When you get steals and layups, the crowd goes nuts and you just keep going. You don’t feel tired anymore, you kind of just get energized by that. That’s something that we really focus on is trying to make it hard for them and get steals and try to
get some easy transition lay-ups.

Question: Breanna, I asked Jewell this earlier. What was it like being on top of the space needle and raising the flag this morning?

BREANNA STEWART: It was very early. I had to wake up a little earlier than normal, but to be able to go on top of the space needle and raise the flag — Jewell and I had been up on top of the space needle before, so it was kind of old news, no offense, but raising the flag and seeing our logo kind of throughout Seattle, that was awesome. And even when I was leaving shootaround today, you look up, you see the needle and you see the Seattle Storm flag, and it just kind of puts the city on notice that we’re fighting for a championship, and hopefully they’ll come out and
support.

Question: The semifinals series was really marked by big leads and comebacks, and you guys really kept the energy going for 40 minutes tonight. How did you go about keeping that up?

JEWELL LOYD: We learned from our mistakes. We learned that we can’t do that. We can’t give teams life. Definitely not in the Playoffs, right. So we kind of had a situation tonight where we had possession after possession where we didn’t get stops, and we weren’t scoring, and we called a time-out, and like, we’re not doing this again. We kind of looked at each other like we learned from last series, and we’re not going to start Game 1 doing this, so I think that’s just us learning, growing as a team, and it definitely showed tonight.

Q. For both of you, it seems this year there is a buzz in this city surrounding this team that I know I haven’t seen before even back in 2010 when they were winning the championship. Have you noticed a big difference amongst people that aren’t necessarily hard-core Storm fans?

BREANNA STEWART: I don’t know, I think especially– I don’t know if it’s just the city or especially the fact that the WNBA has been talked about a lot nationally just with the pay gap and all that stuff. People are tuned in, and people are paying attention, and people on social media will be like, this is my first time watching the Storm and now I’m a fan, and then people will come to games, and now they come once and now they’re addicted for the rest of the season. I think forour team especially, the way and the style that we play, it’s exciting. It’s fun. People feed off of it, and we’re having fun, as well.

JEWELL LOYD: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I got a car wash the other day, and the guy was like, I can’t wait to go to the game, never been. I’m like, awesome, thanks. So now he’s intrigued with what we’re doing. It’s just great with this platform that we’re bringing new people to watch our game, and it just makes the city unique.

Question: Jewell, you talked a little bit the struggles with your shot in the last series, and then you had the four straight perimeter shots that you knocked down in the second quarter. When was the last time you kind of had a stretch you felt like that, and how good does it feel to have a stretch like that at this point?

JEWELL LOYD: Yeah, you know, when you’re a shooter, you’ve got to have short-term memory. I think I saw a post where Kobe was like, if you’re not open, still shoot the ball, and I was like, I made that my screen saver, because I’m like, I need to be able to shoot and just have short-term memory. But it helps when you’re playing with people who are unselfish that set you up and keep giving you the ball, and that’s what makes this team special. Everyone is willing to make the extra pass, and regardless if you miss 100 shots or you make the next 70, this team is going to give you the ball. Our team is just special, and I love playing with this team.