WNBA FINALS: STORM VS. ACES

October 6, 2020

Gary Kloppenburg

Seattle Storm

Game 3: Postgame

Q. What does it mean, all season long you're expected to win the title and you did it in the most dominant fashion in the history of the league with a 33-point win tonight to make it into a laughter, so to speak?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Yeah, it felt like a lot of pressure, because the expectations were there but these are all such good teams here from top to bottom that every game you have to get prepared, and really for each team in our league, it's such a high level of basketball. I'm just really proud of our group. They just stayed together through a lot of weird stuff. Just kind of weird playing a season in a bubble, but it's been historic for our team and the league.

Q. Did you have any thought of putting Sue back in the game at the end there just so she could celebrate on the court for the title, or did you discuss it with her?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: No, not really. I wasn't thinking about that. I wanted to make sure we got everybody in, a championship game. You don't get very many of those. Maybe you never get another one. So I wanted to make sure, in that type of a game, we got everybody some time.

Q. The 19 turnovers, for like 18 points, was that the difference in this game?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Yeah, I thought our defense was resilient all the way through. We started out a little bit soft, I think, on Wilson. But as we got going, I thought our intensity and our energy and our disruption really picked up. That kind of broke it in that second quarter. I think we held them to 13 points, and got a little bit of separation. I think the way we came out for the third was just tremendous. Sort of took their will away. Wanted to come out and really take their confidence away in that third quarter, and I think we did a really good job of that.

Q. Just big picture-wise, if I can take you back to July, did you think this season would even finish with everything that was going on, and to now be here, just your thoughts on this incredible journey?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Yeah, you have doubts throughout how it's going to happen. Even getting started and just such an unknown situation that really we're all in. But to pull this off, kudos to our league [Commissioner], Cathy Engelbert, and her staff. They have done just an outstanding job at building this environment, building the parameters of how it would work.

Just really excited to get to play so well, I thought, all the way through, with some adversity. And just to represent what's right and what's just. That's the bigger picture here, besides the basketball on the court. Just trying to progress justice in the right way the world should be going. I think it's neat -- our team made a statement.

Q. I wondered if you can talk about, I know you talked a whole lot about how impressive Breanna has been coming back from an Achilles, but there's no guarantee when you come back from an injury like that and she's once again MVP of the Finals. And can you once again give us some thoughts on the leadership of Sue Bird to have won four championships now?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Yeah, Stewie is just one of those players, a generational player that comes through once in a while that can face adversity and even get stronger because of it. I think that's what we saw with her. She really missed that whole year and she came back as a better player in pretty much every category, on both sides of the ball. Pretty incredible testament to her work ethic and her desire to be such a great player and such a great teammate. She wouldn't care if she scored zero as long as we won. That's the way she is.

And I think Sue is another generational player. She's been through, I don't know how many years for her, but it's pretty incredible what she accomplished. It's her leadership on the court, but also how she's developed as a leader off the court in standing up for a lot of things that have to be done and standing up for a lot of progress that we have to make in this country. She's on the cutting edge and she's a leader of this league. This league is a league of leaders that's trying to move the needle toward justice. I think both on and off the court, what a tremendous example for our youth, both those players.

Q. The game started out, basically everything was going right for Vegas. I believe they got up on you 11-2 or something like that. Just talk about your team's resiliency to get back, even battle back in that first quarter to take the lead, and especially in that third quarter.

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Yeah, I asked Noelle [Quinn], are we actually up? Seemed like we got off late. We just kind of stayed with it. I thought they did a really good job early on getting the ball to Wilson and we got kind of disconnected from her. I think this team just stays with it. We have a good system defensively and offensively and I think they know just stay with it, stay with it. Good things will happen, and that's what we saw in the second quarter. Turned them over a couple times, came down, scored. Even though I didn't think we were shooting the three that well early in the game.

I think that's what you want is players that buy in at both ends of the floor, defensively and offensively. Stay with it and at some point you're going to get some pretty good runs going, as we did tonight.

Q. Is Sue Bird now the greatest Seattle sports athlete of all time?

GARY KLOPPENBURG: Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know what's going on up there with those columnists, but y'all need to take notice, I think. Yeah, incredible to think what she's done through a couple of decades. It's really unprecedented.

I think that the other side of that is the women's game hasn't gotten the respect, and partly because of the white guys that are writing those type of columns. Y'all white guys, wake up out there, man. You've got a whole tremendous gender that can flat-out play basketball. So maybe it's time to move into the mid-century.