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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v LYNXOctober 14, 2015Sylvia FowlesMaya MooreMINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: Game Five Indiana Fever - 52 Q. Sylvia, this series has been so hard fought, so close for the first four games. How were you able to turn it into a run away? Were you surprised you were able to do it tonight? SYLVIA FOWLES: Just locking in as a team. We knew it was going to be hard, and we also knew at some point we were going to have the upper hand. But it just was all about staying together as a team whether we were up or we were down. Q. Sylvia, take us back to July, when you're sitting at home not knowing what comes next. Could you envision a moment like this? SYLVIA FOWLES: No. Actually, I gave up after like the third attempt. I can recall my last time I was in California for the 4th of July, and I thought that the deal was going to go through, and I ended up booking the flight to go home, and nothing happened. At that point, I pretty much just gave up all hope and said that I wasn't going to play this summer. But after All‑Star, we got that call, the happiest day of my life. Q. Does it mean something special to do it with Seimone after trying to get it done in college? SYLVIA FOWLES: It feels good doing it with everybody. So happy Seimone just so happened to be a part of it, but I'm just excited to do it with all these girls. Q. Sylvia, can you talk about the differences between this team and where you were in Chicago and what it was exactly that sort of freed you up to really reach one of the best half seasons you've ever had? SYLVIA FOWLES: Nothing to take away from Chicago. I felt like I fulfilled my contract there in Chicago and just wanted to step out and broaden my horizons on something new. Minnesota just so happened to be the team. Q. Maya, would you describe your night, just what it was like to maybe struggle a little bit from the field but win a Championship? MAYA MOORE: I don't feel‑‑ I didn't feel like I was struggling when I was playing. I was just playing in the moment, whatever the right decision called for at the time, I was just trying to make. Didn't hit the shots that I took, but just still trying to be involved and active in my team's success. It was so rewarding to watch my teammates step up and hit shots. Seimone was unbelievable. She was vintage Seimone. She was like a video game out there the way she was just attacking. Sylvia was just so clutch for us, the heart and soul of those big moments, where if we needed something, we know we could count on Syl. And Brunson just playing her heart out, getting loose balls, running around. Bench players stepping up and making big plays. I could go on and on and. Renee came in. Dev came in. Our bench was so engaged the whole time. I'm just so proud of this team. Q. Maya, you've been here for three of these now, and not necessarily to compare the three, but given what you guys went through this year‑‑ the additions, the injuries, the difficult August‑‑ is this one maybe a little bit special because of having overcome all that? MAYA MOORE: Absolutely. There have been just different elements of the journey of trying to be so successful every single year. The mental, the emotional energy and focus that that takes, the pressure, the expectations, and when things don't go perfectly, how do we handle it? We want to be so great all the time, and we weren't able to do that every minute of every game. I think that was our biggest struggle of trying to get over our perfectionism and just pushing through and not quitting and not giving up and bouncing back, play after play, game after game. That was the definition of this series of just trying to bounce back. We win, they win. We win, they win, we win. So it's just really sweet to win this way. Q. Maya, you mentioned Seimone, but both she and Lindsay were dealing with health issues in the end of the regular season. I'm just wondering, it just seemed like both of them were able to really come through and make clutch plays during these finals even if they weren't 100 percent physically. MAYA MOORE: What Lindsay Whalen and Seimone Augustus did was so hard. You can't imagine how hard it is to come back from injury at the most important time of the season, when everyone is playing well and hard and desperate and you have to find a way to be effective when your body isn't maybe even 80 percent, and staying on your rehab and not getting frustrated that you have to spend an extra hour every day to rehab and ice and stretch and get treatment because your body needs it, and they did it. I remember sitting back in our last regular season game and watching them run up and down the court rehabbing, trying to get their wind, trying to get their condition so they could be ready to help this team when playoffs came around, and it all paid off. Q. Maya, you've won the first two on the road. What was it like to finally be back here and to be able to celebrate one at home with these fans? MAYA MOORE: It is an unbelievable experience. I really don't have words for that feeling. I mean, the way we came out and just executed and started pushing that lead, and the crowd was just so into it, and it just built and built. That last minute, when we were up 15 or so, I just lost it. Like all of us started smiling. The crowd started smiling. We all knew it was coming. And to be able to celebrate it with our fans was truly special because they've been so instrumental in giving us home court advantage for the last‑‑ my entire career here. So especially this season, when we needed them, it's an unbelievable memory. Everybody who came, I can guarantee you, will never forget it. Q. Both teams really struggled to find the bottom of the cylinder in the second period, but you guys really turned that around out of the break while still holding the Fever, just a good team, to relatively poor shooting tonight. What were you able to do? Was it something inspiring that was said? Something you changed tactically? What did you do to turn that around? MAYA MOORE: Just amping everything up defensively. Our post players did a tremendous job of literally trying to play two players when they had their ball screen action. Indiana, they're like a machine when it comes to their two‑man ball screen game, and our post players were on top of it, helping the guards, and getting back to their players so they couldn't score inside, and they were so locked in. Our point guards running around, trying to get through screens and rescreens all series, and then Seimone and I had to turn it up and make it as hard as possible on their wings, who are very versatile, who want to post up, who want to shoot threes, who want to drive to the rim. So everybody just at different times came in, had help defense, got a deflection. We were so active with our hands, which made up for a lot of advantages they might have had. So just truly a team defensive‑‑ the way we wanted to go out. The way we identified all year as just trying to be the best defensive team, and to hold them to 52 was amazing. Q. Maya, do you feel like your team's strength and depth wore down Indiana to a certain extent? They just didn't look like the same team offensively tonight? MAYA MOORE: We hope so. That's the goal. All that full‑court pressure that both teams were applying. Our guards coming off the bench were instrumental to continuing that pressure. So who knows? There's a lot of things that could have keyed into wearing them down, but I know how locked in our guards were, getting smacked by screens every so often, just because it's so loud, and getting back up and continuing to press. You can't give them enough credit for that. But then everybody today was just really into getting up and pressuring and believing. If we did that, eventually we'd break them. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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