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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v LYNXOctober 4, 2015Tamika CatchingsBriann JanuaryMINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: Game One Indiana Fever - 75 Q. Briann, is this the kind of game that you expected? How much of the resilience that this team showed every time the Lynx came at you today is really indicative of what you've been about all year? BRIANN JANUARY: Most definitely. Throughout the course of the season, our team has continued to grow. We have a great core that has been here since 2012, and I think everybody else on the team has just kind of followed our lead and is ready to come in and play quality minutes and step up in the big moments. You had Shenise come in today and do great things. And then you had Marissa with a huge three. Our bench is ready. When their time is called, they're going to be ready. I have no doubt about it. Yeah, tonight was tough. We knew Minnesota would come at us with everything they had, and they continued to punch. I'm so proud of my team in staying together and staying united and weathering those storms. Q. Catch, you're known for your defense and everything, but out front, Bri really set the tone. How much of that did you see in her pesky defense really set the tone for you guys tonight? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: Yeah, big time. We talked about it over and over again, just as a team what we need to bring, what every individual player needs to bring. I challenged Bri to lead this team, lead us on the defensive end and to lead us on the offensive end. Just being the point guard, everybody is always focused in on her. When she plays the way she knows how to play defensively, she gets underneath people's skin so bad. It's fun to watch as a teammate, because she's my teammate, of course, but even offensively down the stretch, this is the best I've seen her play and being able to finish out games, I think, ever. The confidence she played with tonight, we need her to play with that for the rest of the series. Q. [No microphone]. A one‑point lead, the crowd is going crazy. You're in a time‑out. What's the talk right there? What's the mindset right there? BRIANN JANUARY: Slow down, focus, breathe, now let's think about what we need to do and how we need to execute it. That's exactly what we did in our huddle. We stopped. We heard the fans going. Everything was loud. We knew they were going on a run, but we really, like I said before, came together and stayed united in those moments and focused on the small things that we needed to do to pull out this game still, and that's executing on offense and getting huge stops and rebounding to finish our "D." I think we did that great down the stretch. Q. This is the Lynx's first home playoff loss since 2012 when you guys came in here. In your locker room, does it have the same type of feel that it did just a few years ago? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: I'll be honest. I haven't really thought about 2012. We have the same core group, but we have so many new players, and we have a different system, a different coach, a lot of different things. One thing we talked about every single series leading up to this one is, hey, just take care of business. We talked about being united. As a united front, when one player is not doing well, everybody else steps up. When two players aren't doing well, everybody else steps up. Our bench is always ready, people on the court. Even if you're not scoring, you can do other things. You can rebound and box out. Brunson was a big test for me tonight and getting to the boards. That takes a lot of energy out of me. Everybody has a job on this team. So the feeling in the locker room was really more individually what do I need to do to help put our team in a position to win this game? Q. Tamika, I believe you had just two points in the first half, and you were speaking of stepping up. How did you and folks like Johnson and Zellous step up to help Coleman and January in the second half? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: The confidence. I believe that, no matter whether I'm scoring or not, I can make a difference in the game. My teammates rely on me offensively and defensively. Whether I score zero points, whether I score two, whether I score 15, 20, whatever the case may be, one thing that will never go away is my heart, will never go away is the passion that I play with. Yes, in the second half, we were able to come out and able to score more points and put ourselves in a position as a team, but the great thing is we talk about a team, and we talk about the little things that everybody does that makes a big difference. You look at that stat sheet, and it's not always about the scores and how many points people scored, it's about the little things that‑‑ I talk about this over and over again, but the little things that don't show up on a stat sheet. Q. Knowing now that the Lynx are going to come out with a chip on their shoulder in Game 2, how do you guys plan to come out and continue to execute? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: We've got to have a chip too. We can't look at this, yeah, we won the series. Steph said you can celebrate until midnight, and then we get ready for the next game. That has to be the mentality of this team. One game's over. Forget about it. Forget about this game. We move on to the next game, and we focus on one game at a time. Next game, they are going to come out with a chip on their shoulder. They know the things they need to do better. We know the things we need to do better. It's huge we don't think about us being up. This game we focus on the little things we need to do better so we can put ourselves in a position to win again. Q. Sylvia and Maya got their points, but the Lynx have been about balance all year long. How big was it for you to limit Whalen and Augustus? How were you able to be so successful in that? BRIANN JANUARY: It was huge. Like you said, they have a very well‑balanced team, and they have scoring threats all over the place. We've faced this problem throughout the playoffs. We know we can't let all of them go off. We're going to make adjustments in our defense, and we're going to have different schemes, but we have to individually take pride in our defense and lock people down. We know we're going to be giving up things here and there. I think our team did a great job of just staying together, having each other's backs, and rotating and limiting the people that we needed to limit and contesting those shots. We know Maya is going to hit hard shots. That's just going to happen every game. She's going to make some unbelievable plays, but we have to stay disciplined to our defense, and I think we did a great job of that today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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