• With the win, Seattle has now won seven straight WNBA Finals games (2004, 2010, 2018) and has won six straight Finals games at home (2004, 2010, 2018). Both marks are the most in Finals history.
• Natasha Howard played her 16th Finals game, which is a tie for eighth place on the WNBA’s all-time list.
• Sue Bird passed Diana Taurasi for second place on the WNBA’s playoff assists list.

Seattle Storm:

Q. Winning this game with a defensive stop, forcing the jump ball and then winning that and kind of the defense in general down the stretch, was that symbolic of the difference maybe between this year’s team and last year’s team that might not have won a game like this when you didn’t have a great shooting night?

SUE BIRD: Probably, yeah. I think obviously the tale of the season is that in the last two years, I think we were one, two, top three for sure in offense. We could score. That wasn’t a problem. We had a problem getting the stops. And when we did get the stops, we had a problem getting the rebound. That’s been the tale of this season. That’s what’s been a part of the turnaround. So in some ways, it’s fitting that we won a game with our defense. Definitely says a lot about our team that we just kind of hung in there. It was a tough, gritty game. Both sides, to be honest. I think both sides,
both teams had moments throughout where they could have thrown in the towel, and what you saw was two teams just fighting to the end. So hopefully it made for good basketball, and of course we’re beyond thrilled to have gotten the win.

Q. Sue, take me through the final defensive possession and what you were trying to do there? Washington seems to think you were looking to use the foul to —

SUE BIRD: No, I wasn’t. If you want to go talk to somebody about that play, you should go talk to Chris Daley. I’ve been doing that swipe-around-the-back thing since I was like 18 years old. She absolutely hates it. She calls it the Sue Bird move. In fact, when she does scouting reports, she will say like watch out for so-and-so, they do the Sue Bird move. I literally, the minute I walked in the locker room I checked my phone, I knew I was going to have a text message about it, like sure enough, congratulations, you did the Sue Bird move. That was a play where — no, you go into that, you don’t want them to get a good look, right, so when she caught it in the corner, there was a moment where — and you’re guarding Kristi Toliver, there was a moment where — and we’re only up two, we’re thinking, I’m thinking, she might shoot this three. So I lunged out a little bit, which kind of gave her that pathway to get down the baseline, and once she went by me, I did the good ol’ Sue Bird move and was lucky to get a piece of the ball. I knew we had a foul to give, but that was not my intention at all.

Q. Can you describe just I guess the play and your reaction to that 35-footer? How did that make the difference in the game?

SUE BIRD: Yeah, you know, sometimes you throw them up there and they go in, and this was not — this was just that. The shot clock was running down. It has nothing to do with anything other than that. And I was just able to get it on the rim, and it banked. I did not call it, I did not mean it. I’m glad it went in, and I could tell from the reaction of the fans that it was just — it was one of those shots that can bring energy into a building, give energy to our team. So of course I’m just happy it went in. Not much to it, though.

Q. Breanna, you’re plus 10 rebounding; what was going right there for you, and then you hold them to 0 for 16 on threes. What was working in that part of the game?

BREANNA STEWART: We had a big emphasis on rebounding, and honestly throughout the game it didn’t feel like we had a plus 10 rebounding margin. It felt like they kept getting some scrappy ones or big rebounds, and we just knew that they were going to crash offensively. Honestly, we didn’t know that they went without a three until we just talked about it like before we came up here. But that goes for our defense, putting them under duress, making them shoot contested threes most of the time, and our closeouts and rotations were hard to do and hard to — for the offense to figure out what we were doing.

Q. Breanna, can you talk about just what a big day this was for you with 25 points and also getting to the line as much as you did? And then Sue, if you could just follow with to me this was a real MVP game for her; if you could just talk about that, please.

BREANNA STEWART: You know, right from the jump, I just wanted to be really aggressive. You knew that this was Game 2, and they were going to come out like a better DC team than we saw in Game 1. I was able to get to the free-throw line, and I would have loved to have made those last two at the end, but the majority of the game, just being aggressive, assertive, and doing the plays to win the game.

SUE BIRD: Yeah, she definitely came out assertive. You could tell right away. I think what makes this an MVP type game is down the stretch she wanted the ball, she was posting up hard. We wanted to get her the ball, and she finished the plays off. That’s — it’s more — MVP-type performances, anyone can get lucky, right, like anyone can have a great game, á la myself Game 5, anybody can have one night. But for somebody who consistently has presence and consistently wants the ball and consistently is winning your team basketball games, that’s an MVP, and Stewie obviously showed that tonight, but in all honesty, she’s been showing it all season. This wasn’t new. And yeah, she was just super assertive, and I’m glad she was.

DAN HUGHES: Well, you knew Washington would respond after Game 1, and that second quarter was an example, I think, of how good they were. What I was pleased with was that we realized at halftime that we’ve got to kind of back out and reestablish some things. It’s going to be that — you’ve got two great teams going against each other. It’s going to be like that in regard to it. I thought it was really imperative that Jewell kind of become part of our flow, and I thought she did a great, great job of giving us that flow at that point, andit came down to a stop, and I thought we really did a good job. This is a team that’s grown defensively. They have grown. All year if you watch the defensive numbers, better, better, better, better, and I thought it was only poetic that some of these most important games are going to come down to a stop.

Q. You only forced two turnovers through three quarters. What kind of changed in the fourth that enabled you to create a lot more turnovers?

DAN HUGHES: You know, it wasn’t so much a change, I think, as it was just early work to what we were dealing with. I think — we’d had a hard time really speeding them up in regard to it. They’d gone away from a lot of pick-and-rolls, they’d gone into more isolations and things like that, so now all of a sudden it’s a little bit about your fundamentals and what have you. But I did think down the stretch we were able to have a little more ball pressure, a little more rotation, a little more congestion into spaces, and that’s — it’s a battle to do that with them because I thought they made a lot of plays along the way.

Q. From your perspective can you take us through that final mystics possession where you forced a jump ball? What was your take on that series?

DAN HUGHES: I didn’t see a foul. I mean, if anything, I thought we had a time-out called because I thought we had possession of that. That’s more what’s in my head there. But you know, that’s the nature of when it’s this competitive a little bit. I have no question that there’s plays both teams can look at and say, boy, I wish this would have gone this way here. That’s just the nature of what we’re doing. But from my vantage point, I didn’t see it.

Q. Coach, you get a couple of early baskets to start the fourth and you hold the lead the rest of the way. What did you have to do to just keep that margin all the way to the end?

DAN HUGHES: Well, I wish it was that easy. A couple things. You know, if we make our free throws down the stretch, we probably have that. In the back and forth affair — and the other thing, I think, is learning in those situations. But I thought we did a great job, and I think Sue was directing a lot of it. We got touches for Stewie, and I think that’s imperative. And then we also had the ability to, I think, in some cases play to the paint. We lost the ability to play the paint in the second quarter. If you look at what happened the second quarter, they really established, we didn’t. Down the stretch we were able to either drive it or pitch it into those areas. Well, I’m just going to tell you that a lot of good is going to happen if we can get it to there. I thought that was imperative that Stewie got several touches she did. I thought Jewell did a good job of being more aggressive to the middle of the floor. It’s basketball, but it’s going to be like that. Washington is an incredible team. You are not going to separate very much.

Q. You mentioned getting Stewie touches. Her ability to score efficiently in those situations when she’s kind of the focal point of the defense, how important was that tonight?

DAN HUGHES: Oh, it’s huge. One of the messages that I thought to start the game, we got second touches for Stewie in situations, and she did a good job of seeking — and they were paint touches. Those are huge. Those are huge because not only is she going to score, she’s going to distribute well. And sometimes it’s the second touch. Sometimes the congestion in the first touch doesn’t always lead to something, but if there’s a second touch in the course of — and we play with a lot of flow. Boy, your chances, your analytics for success with Breanna Stewart catching the ball twice is
good, and I don’t even know the exact number, but I’ve watched enough tape to know.

Q. Were they doing anything different defensively? You had 15 turnovers, a little unusual for your teams. Did they come up with something different that you weren’t expecting?

DAN HUGHES: Well, I thought they were — I thought they were well prepared. I can’t sit here and say that this was tremendously different. But they fought us for space. They fought us for position. They fought us. We had to go into the second half and reestablish. It’s just two good teams battling, and they created battle to me for where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do in regard to it. We had to kind of regroup, have a little presence, keep the ball moving, and that’s just the level of play it’s going to be in the Finals. I mean, that’s not going to be anything different when we head up to Washington.

Q. They missed all 16 of their three-pointers. I don’t know if you were aware of that, but I’m just curious how much you think that came into play. Were you guys pretty fortunate for that to happen do you think?

DAN HUGHES: Yeah. I mean, you want the correct answer? Yeah, they’re a really good — statistically they’re a really good three-point shooting team. Are we working at it, yes. But sometimes they have — you have periods where the ball doesn’t go in the basket. I think it’s a little bit of both.

Washington Mystics:

MIKE THIBAULT: Breanna Stewart shot 14 free throws and Elena Delle Donne shot three, so that’s my opening statement.

Q. Take us through that last play. What happened there?

MIKE THIBAULT: Well, on the last play when Kristi had the ball, they had a foul to give, they tried to take the foul. Sue Bird took the foul and the officials didn’t understand that Seattle was actually trying to take a foul, and then the ball gets knocked loose on the floor. On the jump ball, we just went to sleep. We’re all telling them to foul on the jump ball, and we had people running to their man, but unfortunately there was somebody else open. But we knew that they were going to take a foul. We had drawn up two plays at the time-out, and they took the foul, and it wasn’t called.

Q. Also, you played so cleanly through three quarters, two turnovers, and you had five in the fourth. What’s the explanation for that?

MIKE THIBAULT: I can’t tell you. I don’t know.

Q. Mike, you mentioned Elena not getting free throws, but what else — she wasn’t really as effective in the second half. What were they doing?

MIKE THIBAULT: Well, they double-teamed her, they sent an extra defender. Sue was leaving people to go and help on her, making some of our other people try to make shots. They basically tried to make Pratt and Ariel Atkins make shots, and we didn’t make enough. I thought our defense was good enough tonight for the most part. We hold them to under 42 percent, hold them in the 70s. It gives us a chance to win. But we didn’t make enough shots against their defense. We need one more kind of offensive burst from somebody, and it was hard.

Q. After Friday’s game, what kind of adjustments did you make to keep yourselves in this game and give yourselves a chance to win it today?

MIKE THIBAULT: I just thought we played better defense. We didn’t turn it over in the first half like we did last night. In the first half of Game 1, they had 15 points in transition, mostly off our turnovers. We had one turnover today at halftime, and I thought that was the biggest difference. We got good performances from some of our bench. Obviously Myisha Hines- Allen and Pratt were big. Aerial Powers gave us a couple good minutes in the first half. But in a do-or-die situation like that where you’re trying to steal a game on the road, I stuck with that core group for most of the
game, and we’ve got three days to get rested.

Q. At one point in the second half I think you were down basically 2 to 1 in rebounding and you finish over 16 on threes. I wonder if you could address both those areas.

MIKE THIBAULT: Well, the rebounding part is that we got caught in some switches. Howard had a fair amount. But they got a lot of their offensive rebounds in the first half. I thought we did a better job in the second half. We don’t make threes, it’s hard for us. We’re one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league. They didn’t make them that well, either, but I think it was the defense on both teams. It’s tough when we don’t make any. We rely on that, and we didn’t make them tonight.

Q. What was your reaction to Sue Bird’s 35-footer to —

MIKE THIBAULT: Well, like — you hate it. There’s not much — it was one of those things that you hope that’s kind of a regular-season shot, not a playoff-deciding shot. Tough to overcome a play like that. We played great defense on the possession, get them to take a 40-something foot shot, and it banks in, and it ends up being the difference in the game. I don’t know what
you say.

Q. The second thing is Breanna Stewart came out hot, 11 points, I think, in the first six minutes, and she didn’t score another field goal for 20 minutes or so. What did you do to —

MIKE THIBAULT: Just played a little better defense, stayed a little closer, made it a little harder for her to catch it. She was pretty amped up at the start, had fresh legs, and then that kind of went away.

Q. You mentioned the bench play. As much as Tierra played tonight, do you see potentially changing the starting lineup going forward?

MIKE THIBAULT: Probably not. Our starting lineup got us this far. Just one of those nights Tash was having a tough night tonight, and our plus-minus on the floor with Pratt was much better, so we stuck with that.

Q. Kristi, kind of take us through that last possession there when you were kind of driven through the paint. What happened? Mike said that Seattle was trying to foul and the refs didn’t understand what was going on. What was your perspective?

KRISTI TOLIVER: Yeah. I mean, I got fouled going baseline. I think it was pretty blatant, it was pretty obvious. Sue is smart, she knows they have one foul to give. They wanted to foul before I could be in a shooting motion. I wish the officials had a little more basketball IQ like Sue does because that would have been the play instead of a jump ball, and then we get in a scramble situation, try to foul again, somebody is in the way, I can’t go foul the ball handler, and the clock goes down. That’s pretty much what happened.

Q. You forced them into a lot more turnovers today, stayed in the game. What were some differences in your game plan coming out today to do that kind of thing?

ELENA DELLE DONNE: I mean, anything we did today was going to be better than what we did in the last game. We came out and we were ourselves. We applied ball pressure. We had some people come in who really stepped up for us, and yeah, I mean, that’s how we play. That was us. So obviously it’s really frustrating to not come away with the win, but we were able to see a lot of things, and we get to build on it for these next three games.

Q. Kristi, you played so cleanly ball security wise for the first three quarters, only two turnovers, but five in the fourth. What do you think was the difference there do you think?

KRISTI TOLIVER: Yeah, we weren’t on the same page. The way they were covering us, we weren’t giving releases, giving outlets when they were either trapping or being physical with the Elena on the block. Those are things we can fix. Obviously you don’t want those kind of things to happen in the fourth quarter with the game so close, but honestly, that’s part of what the difference of the game was. If we can clean that up, value the ball, we talked about it at the beginning of the game of just valuing it for 40 minutes. We got to about 35. Clean it up, we’re better, we’re smarter, we’ll be okay.

Q. Elena, you had the big second quarter and then it was just tough to score it looked like for you. Can you talk about what they were doing and maybe what you guys weren’t able to do to get you the ball as much where you needed it in the second half?

ELENA DELLE DONNE: I think we fell in love too much with me getting the ball on the block. I’m more than just a back-to-the-basket type of player. Playing in space opens up my teammates, also opens myself up. We’ve got to find a way to not become one-dimensional and just try to force it in. When that’s not working, we’ve got to spread the floor, attack, and fouls are called when you’re on the move, when you’re attacking, but back to the basket, it’s a lot easier for them to not call fouls.

Q. Kristi, just the three-point shooting, 0 for 16. How much of that was their defense or just your shots weren’t falling or a combination?

KRISTI TOLIVER: Oh, shoot, I didn’t know we were 0 for 16. That’s a huge factor in the game, too. As a three-point shooting team, we need some of those to go in, and we’re going home, we feel really good, we feel really positive. We’re going to be better. We were better from the day before. We’re going to be better when we get home, and we’re going to knock down shots.