NEW YORK LIBERTY NOTES

• The shorthanded Liberty had just eight players available for the matchup; Shavonte Zellous, Epiphanny Prince, Marissa Coleman, and Amanda Zahui B were all unavailable due to various injuries.
• The Dream missed their first nine field goal attempts to begin to contest.
• Tina Charles got off to a quick start, scoring 10 first quarter points and 20 in the half.
• New York outrebounded Atlanta 26-14 in the first half as they built a 48-37 lead. The Liberty made 20 of their 38 field goal attempts before the break, good for a 58.8 shooting percentage.
• After a Charles basket to start the second half, Atlanta scored 21 unanswered points, seizing their first lead since the first quarter and extending it to 58-50. The Dream made seven of eight field goal attempts during that span, including four threes.
• The Liberty outscored the Dream in three of four quarters, but a 32-10 Atlanta advantage in the third proved to be the difference.
• Charles finished with a team-high 26 points, her third game in a row with at least 20. The veteran chipped in eight rebounds as well.
• Coming off a season-high 13 points against the Sparks, Rebecca Allen picked up where she left off, finishing with 16 points in 25 minutes off the bench.
• Bria Hartley joined Charles and Allen in double figures with 12 points to go along with six assists.
• Kiah Stokes notched six points and 10 rebounds off the bench. It was her second double-digit rebounding performance in a row, and her third on the season.
• Brittany Boyd grabbed a career-high nine rebounds, notching five points and four assists as well.
• After setting a franchise record with seven threes the last time the Dream and Liberty met, Renee Montgomery bested that total with eight makes from deep this time around. Her seven threes after halftime set a WNBA record for threes in a half.
• The Liberty finished with 22 assists, their fifth game in their last five with over 20.
• New York made a season-low two of 17 attempts from behind the arc.
• The Dream attempted 30 free throws in the contest, hitting 22 of them, while the Liberty made 11 of 14 attempts.
• The Dream’s seven turnovers were the fewest by a Liberty opponent this season.
• The loss was the Liberty’s ninth in a row, and it gave the Dream a 2-1 victory in the season series.

ATLANTA DREAM NOTES

• Brittney Sykes notched her 15th double-digit point game of the season with 17.
• Renee Montgomery passed Betty Lenox (63) for the most single-season three-pointers made after connecting on eight today. She now has 71 for season and 14 over the last two games.
• She broke her own franchise record for three’s in a game with eight tonight.
• Montgomery also finished with a season-high 30 points.
• Tiffany Hayes continued her impressive season with 27th double-digit effort (10 points).
• Jessica Breland recorded her ninth double-digit scoring effort of 2018 with 16 points.
• With tonight’s win, the Dream extent their record for all-time regular season wins to 22.
• The Dream have won six straight and 14 of the last 15 games.
• The Dream are now 22-10 on the season and 9-6 on the road.
• The nine road wins ties the most by a Dream team in a season (2010, 2011).
• Atlanta is now 16-26 all-time against the New York Liberty and 7-15 on the road.
• The Dream are now 16-2 when scoring at least 80 points.

NEW YORK LIBERTY QUOTES

Tina Charles on the second half…

“Atlanta just wanted it more. Katie [Smith] had warned us that they were going to come out a different team. We came out sloppy, and they came out hungry. The third quarter is what propelled them to the victory.”

Charles on wearing the Liberty jersey…

“I never take it for granted. Playing for the New York Liberty is an honor. I hold this jersey and organization near and dear to my heart. I always just try and seize the moment.”

Charles on the fans…

“I am just very thankful for the fans coming out and supporting us. I know a lot of season ticket holders commuted from far to support us here in Westchester. We have very dedicated fans and I appreciate them so much.”

Charles on the upcoming road trip…

“We are just going to go out there and try to win some games. We are going to continue to get better, be coachable, listen to the coaching staff, and pay attention to detail. We have to take it one game at a time.”

Kia Nurse on this being the last home game of the season…

“The season has gone by really quickly. Obviously, with this being the last home game, it was great to have the support we did. I just want to thank them for all their support.”

Rebecca Allen on being the first one off the bench tonight…

“Everyone coming off the bench needs to be aggressive. Our team has been limited due to injuries, so we all need to step up in our own ways.”

Allen’s message to the fans…

“Just thank you for traveling to White Plains and supporting us through this difficult season. We really appreciate you.”

Head Coach Katie Smith’s opening statement …

“Another tough one. Solid first half by us. I tired to tell them at half that they’re not going to stop. We have to come right back out because they’re going to come right back out with a lot of energy, same as we did in the first half. Then, they popped us in the mouth at the start of the second half and that’s all she wrote.”

Smith on what went wrong in the third quarter…

“We didn’t score the basketball and we didn’t find [Renee] Montgomery. It isn’t a secret that she’s a three baller. She hit seven against us in Atlanta. Everybody knew that once she starts to hit one or two, things get rolling. You have to get in her space and communicate with each other.”

Smith on their limited bench…

“They’ve all been champs about everything the whole season start to finish. I’m proud of them and the way they show up. I am proud of their effort and how hard they play. We just have to get better on lots of little things. We need to take mistakes and improve on them.”

Smith on her first year as head coach…

“Decent. It’s hard because I don’t think even as a player I’d ever been like ‘Man, I killed that!’ I think its solid. I feel comfortable. I want to keep learning. The conversations, the relationships, game planning, I feel very comfortable and willing to adjust ton every year. Next year’s going to be a whole new ball game.”

Smith on Fan Appreciation Day…

“We love [our fans]. They’re so loyal. They love this league. They love this team. We appreciate them so much. They’ve gone through a lot this year. We are so thankful that they’ve been so supportive all year. They’ve been rowdy. They’ve been right there with us. We’re pumped that they’ve been through thick and thin with us.”

ATLANTA DREAM QUOTES

Brittney Sykes on team play without Angel McCoughtry … 

“I think we have been dealing with losing a key player throughout the whole season. I went down, Tiffany [Hayes], and now Angel. We slowly get ourselves back into it, but our motto is next man up. Coach did a great job picking players on this team, you can just pick your poison. On any given night any of us can go off and step up when we are down a post or down a guard. Credit to them [coaches] for having confidence in us, and credit to ourselves for staying together even when we are missing a link.”

Sykes on third quarter run.…

“Everyone is wondering what happened. It’s one of those things where we just kicked ourselves in the foot over and over again in the first half. We let Tina [Charles] go to her right hand. We let Rebecca Allen get those shots off and then in the second half we know that maybe teams are expecting us to lay down. We are playing for two days off tomorrow so that was the biggest motivation.”

Renee Montgomery on three-point performance…

“Before the past two games I couldn’t hit a shot, so you have to just keep shooting the ball and hopefully the law averages take over and you can make a certain amount and miss a certain amount.”

Montgomery on leaving Lynx to come to Atlanta…

“My whole style and how I do things are always team first and that was kind of the first decisions of my basketball career where it was for personal reasons only. It wasn’t for business. I wanted to come to Atlanta and be closer to my family. I had faith in coach Nicki [Collen] but it was really just like ‘alright I am going to do it’, and I did it. When you do things like that you never know what’s going to happen and I was ready for anything, even if we didn’t make the play offs this year I would have to live with that decision but that’s why I was just saying it was a blessing that I took that leap of have and here we are at number two.”

Montogmery on playoffs…

“We have to get that number two spot. In a single game elimination with the talent in this league is scary. It’s like March Madness all over again, I like to call it August Madness and really I just want us to be in a position that if we don’t have a good game we can come back, regroup, and play another one so that’s why the number two position is so important for us.”

Head coach Nicki Collen on their recent schedule…

“It was a gut-check. Six games in nine days, back to back games. We tipped at 2:00 p.m. yesterday and got to the hotel at 11:45 p.m. last night. We looked like it to start the game. They played us very soft early and kind of went under everything. We just weren’t making any jump shots. We challenged them to keep attacking the rim.”

Collen on their defensive strategy for Tina Charles…

“The way [Liberty] runs their offense sometimes you can’t bring a double team, post to post. Even though, you want to. Sometimes you have to bring it from [Brittany] Boyd and really dig off of Boyd since she is not as much of a perimeter shooter. You even need to cat and mouse Sugar [Rodgers] to make her think, ‘Should I pull this back into my shooting pocket?’ I thought our activity level, in the gaps, is what really improved. Tina was hitting unbelievable shots in the first half. She showed you her arsenal in the first half. Hopefully, because they hadn’t rested her for a second, you were hoping she would come up short on some of those fadeaways as she is stepping away from us. There’s nothing you can do when, even with a double team, if she shoots it before the double gets there. There’s not much you can do. It was a strategy but as much as it was a strategy it was a commitment to an activity level.”

Collen on what she said to the team at halftime…

“There’s no magic answer. The one thing I told the team is that they would get two days off if they win this game. We knew we were going to be tired but it’s twenty minutes, what do you got? I asked for them to give me all they have for the next twenty minutes. We are one run away from being in this thing and having an opportunity. We’ve been down before.”

Collen on their third quarter run…

“It was about finding a rhythm. Obviously, we came out great in the third quarter and when you eliminate a big lead in a really short period of time, that was all we needed adrenaline wise to grind out those last twenty minutes.”

Collen on the team’s slow start…

“We’ve been down enough early in games. If we have an MO it would that sometimes we are slow out of the gate. We’ll go down 9 to 2 but the team knows, ‘Okay, it’s just the first two minutes. We’ve got this.’ They kind of knew they were okay. That if they [Liberty] went on a little run that we could put the pressure back on New York.”

Collen on the mentality of this Dream team…

“This team knows how to grind. There’s no doubt. Even early. Even when we were 500 early and win one and lose two, etc. we kept coming to play. We were competitive every game, didn’t back down and were playing hard. Then when we found our groove offensively and found our balance. Our post players started scoring, now all of a sudden you can’t really key into anyone.”