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WNBA FINALS: SPARKS VS LYNX

October 11, 2016

Brian Agler

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lynx - 79, Sparks - 60

BRIAN AGLER: I thought they were very hungry. I know I use that word a lot, but to me that's what jumps out to me when you see a team play with strong desire. This was a very important -- I mean, we played like this game was more important to them than it was to us, and that's unfortunate, because you don't get these opportunities often, so you have to play like you know you may not get this game back.

That being said, they handily outplayed us. I liked how we fought back after half. We cut it to five, I think, maybe four. I don't know what it was. But yeah, we couldn't break them. We couldn't break them. Again, they played well. I was impressed with how they played tonight, and so we'll go back and we'll regroup. I'm hoping we'll learn a lot. We've got a lot of people who haven't been here, so there's a lot of things we can learn, and we'll just get ready for Friday.

Q. Did you like the shots that you were getting offensively and just ones that you weren't hitting, or do you think there were other problems with that?
BRIAN AGLER: No, we had some good looks. I felt like we didn't turn the ball over much. We didn't give ourselves a lot of extra second shots. I thought we missed -- and I know that this isn't going to be the difference in the outcome of the game, but I thought we missed some free throws at a time we could have really helped ourselves to stay in or maybe get a lead early in the game, and we didn't convert. But when the ball went up on the glass and a shot was taken on either end, when the ball was in the midst of being possessed, they outworked us.

Q. You spoke a little bit about the persistence of Minnesota today. Could you talk a little bit about the second chances they had today when possessing the balls?
BRIAN AGLER: Yeah, like I said, I thought they -- I don't know exactly what they shot. I haven't had a chance to study it. But they gave themselves second opportunities at some critical times. That definitely played into the outcome of the game. When the ball was up on the glass, they went and got it.

For us to win another game in this series or win the series either way, then we're going to have to be more competitive on the boards.

Q. Could you comment on the shot distribution as opposed to whether you're getting open shots? It looks from the score sheet that people who were shooting most poorly were taking most of the shots.
BRIAN AGLER: Well, I didn't -- I haven't had a chance to really study it, but we'll go back and look at it and see. I thought Kristi -- we've got to have Kristi take shots. We've got to have Candace take shots. Now, how they're getting them and those kind of things is important.

Now, the other thing you've got to remember is sometimes they're defending us in a way to let people take shots. You know, they're going to really obviously congest Nneka. They're going to give Kristi a lot of attention. They're going to give Candace a lot of attention. So that's what I mean multiple people going at them, so that leaves people open. We're going to have to find a way to convert those.

Q. Brian, in Game 1 you were minus eight in rebounds, tonight you're minus 14. How do you patch that up with a couple of games in Los Angeles because that's where Minnesota really seems to hang around, and tonight that's where they got the edge.
BRIAN AGLER: No, we've got to -- like I said, when the ball goes up on the glass, we've got to find a way to be more competitive, stay in plays with them. Our guards are going to need to rebound defensively a little bit more. But they're a good rebounding team. That's a strength of theirs. That's not necessarily a great strength of ours, and so we're not going to all of a sudden become the best rebounding team in the country, but we've got to be more competitive there.

But we've got to get our strengths to shine a little bit.

Q. Do you still feel pretty good going back home already having one in hand with two at home coming up?
BRIAN AGLER: You know, I'm glad we won a game. I don't really -- as much as you sit back, and I've been not really involved in a series whether it's NBA or WNBA or whatever and you're sitting back and saying, well, that team has got to win on the road, that's going to be very important, and it is, there's no question about it, but from my seat now, I don't really look at it that way. I just sort of focus on the next game, and before the first game I was just focusing on that one. Tonight I was just focusing on this one.

Our focus right now is to win one more game. That's what we want to do. We want to win one more game, and then we'll see where we stand and we'll go from there.

Q. You mentioned the third quarter. What do you think was working for you in the third that wasn't working overall in the game?
BRIAN AGLER: Well, I thought we were getting good ball pressure. I thought we were -- I don't know how -- I thought both teams really come out a little bit soft maybe and turned it over, both teams, and then all of a sudden I thought we started getting some stops and scored in transition, so I thought that gave us a chance to get back in. We moved the ball well, got a couple second shots, got a couple transition baskets. I thought that was how we got back in the game. But then, you know, I thought that the tide turned there.

Q. You have, I believe, three made field goals from beyond the arc the first two games with quite a few attempts from three-point range. What do you need to do to improve those numbers going forward?
BRIAN AGLER: Well, I mean, I hope we can make some of them. You know, like there's a couple shots Kristi had wide open and just didn't make. We've got some other people that are pretty good shooters, have been all year long statistically that can hit those shots. So I don't know -- I do think this: I think we have to adjust. I don't know if we want to take 20 threes, but I also know that my approach is you take what the defense gives you, too, and so in a lot of cases they were giving us that shot tonight.

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