2021 WNBA COMMISSIONER’S CUP

August 12, 2021

Sue Bird

Breanna Stewart

Jewell Loyd

Seattle Storm

Postgame

Seattle Storm 79 - Connecticut Sun 57

Q. How are you feeling?

SUE BIRD: Feel pretty good. We won, our team played well. Felt good to be back with the Storm. We talked about this before the game, but we obviously are here playing because we wanted to win. So it was just going to be whatever the minutes were in order to win the game. I think fortunately we did enough in the fourth quarter, and we didn't have to be in there much. So that worked out well.

Q. Just to jump on them like that and have a really big quarter and you set the tone and never trailed the whole game, how significant was it to come out and throw that first punch like that?

BREANNA STEWART: I think it was really important. I think obviously understanding setting the tone but I think that despite everything from this week and being jet lagged and stuff, once we got through our warmup, it was a regular scheduled program, I would say.

We were just aggressive. We knew what this game meant and we wanted to kind of hit them first.

Q. Can you share your jet lag secret, how you beat it? Because I'm feeling it right now and doesn't seem like you guys were.

SUE BIRD: A lot of champagne.

JEWELL LOYD: Keep it going.

Q. You've won a lot of titles and this is a weird one because it's the middle of the season. Not where does it rank, but how do you celebrate or on to the next thing? No one will ever win the first one ever again and Seattle is always going to be known as the inaugural champion.

SUE BIRD: It does have significance in that we are the first winners. When Stewie and JJ did that ceremonial first tip, you were so good at it.

BREANNA STEWART: Were we?

SUE BIRD: No, it was terrible.

BREANNA STEWART: It was a jump.

SUE BIRD: It was totally fine. I'm totally joking. I thought to myself, that's going to be like Penny Toler's first basket or when Lisa Leslie did the first jump. It's always going to be shown as the first moment of the Commissioner's Cup and now it's cool that our team is part of that and now we're the winner.

In the long run does it have any crazy significance, no, other than that. I think Stewie talked about it before the game, this is very familiar for those of us that have played overseas. There's always some random game in February that has a random bonus on it or a random game in November that has a bonus on it or if you're playing your big rival, it has a bonus on it. So we're familiar with it, this midseason-bonus-type game, and it's only good when you win it, so I'm glad we won it.

Q. For you three, I assume it was throw-and-go once you got in, but what's the key to how you were able to do so well defensively?

JEWELL LOYD: We were pretty active. Obviously we're pretty long, as well, so that helped a lot to gain deflections.

Q. Sue, at this point in your career, you don't get to do a lot of things for the first time but how did that feel to win the inaugural Commissioner's Cup for the first time?

SUE BIRD: It felt good -- (audio interruption) -- so again knowing that we were the first. So we'll always be in those record books.

Q. Stewie, this may not matter to other players, but to win that 30K, to give that to everybody, how exciting is that as a team? For some people, this money matters quite a little bit more perhaps.

BREANNA STEWART: Yeah, I think our teammates was the motivating factor behind this game. We wanted to win for them. Obviously 30K is 30K for all of us, but for some of them, it's, I don't even know what the ratio is for Kiana, but it's a lot. To really help them get that is amazing.

Q. When you guys watched them in the first quarter, what's that like to just step back and watch them go off?

JEWELL LOYD: Seems like it's high school. It's kind of normal. It's crazy but it's normal. It's Stewie.

Q. Did you talk about the money ahead of time?

SUE BIRD: Yeah. I think we were one of -- from what I've read in other teams' comments about the Commissioner's Cup throughout the season, I think we were one of the few teams that right from the jump, we are like, oh, this is a Commissioner's Cup game and every time we won, we'd talk about it afterwards, like, Commissioner's Cup, one step closer to that money. Definitely we were talking about it all year.

Q. You mentioned the idea of the tournament being the first of the WNBA but there's not of other leagues -- and you said you were familiar with it overseas, like the NBA doesn't have something like this and MLB doesn't have something like this. You mentioned it being like an accomplishment for the CBA. Do you think about it that way or do you think, wow, we can be, you know, showing off what this can be, some midseason thing? How do you frame it that way?

SUE BIRD: Well, I bring up the CBA because that was a deal that I think put a lot of things in place that will benefit the league and help it grow. The Commissioner's Cup is one aspect of it but there's a lot we can talk about obviously.

But with the Commissioner's Cup it gives something that I think something the WNBA has lacked is its own stage at some times. Different aspects of our season, the Finals, it kind of gets lost. It's not necessarily our time.

A great example is the NCAA Tournament. Women's basketball has its own stage. Whether or not it grows into that, I'm not sure but it's actually something that the league can sell ahead of time. There's going to be a date, a place, a time, you don't know the opponents yet but you can sell that ahead of time. Fans can get excited about that. You can cheer for your teams, or you can buy tickets and go regardless and just like the NCAA Tournament. That's really what I was getting at when I talked about what this Commissioner's Cup means just in terms of long-term growth for the league.

And I think for us players playing, it gets you excited. I mention those bonus games overseas. We all knew in the locker room before those games, like, yo, yeah, there's 10K on this one. You knew it and you talked about it and it does give a different edge to what you're doing as you prepare.

Q. Does doing it on a neutral court like this, I don't know if it's like that in some of those overseas situations, but what dimension does that add to a game like this?

BREANNA STEWART: I think it just continues to kind of increase engagement, like she said. The fact it's on a neutral court makes it that there's no bias, even though Seattle is obviously closer to Phoenix than Connecticut but it brings people into the city and for the WNBA I think that's great. Especially as we continue on with this post-COVID, it's going to be like she said similar to the NCAA where people can just come.

Q. Any plans for your game shoes?

JEWELL LOYD: I haven't unpacked yet. I'll let you know.

SUE BIRD: I don't have any specific plans but I have all the shoes I've won in championship games. I just have them. They are just there cluttering my life.

BREANNA STEWART: Yeah, I have the sneakers from the Olympics in 2016 and I'll keep the ones in 2021, today was a little fiasco with my sneakers.

SUE BIRD: Did you end up changing?

BREANNA STEWART: No. What happened was I was putting on my shoes this morning and I only had the left and the right wasn't my size.

SUE BIRD: Somebody else packed them.

BREANNA STEWART: In the end, I got new sneakers, new Dreamers and they worked out just fine.

Q. Do you ever wear them again after you've won a championship?

SUE BIRD: No.

Q. You guys had a 22-point win over Connecticut in June. What you learned about the team, did that apply at all into what happened tonight?

SUE BIRD: They didn't have JJ that game. They didn't have Jonquel. So it's definitely different. Totally different game plan. She changes everything.

Q. What do you think about the crowd tonight?

SUE BIRD: I thought it was great. I'm thankful they came out. Obviously it felt Seattle heavy, given we are closer than Connecticut but there's definitely many Connecticut fans, too, and probably just people who are fans of basketball. It says here, 5,000. I bet that just continues to grow. Like Stewie said, it will be post-COVID next time, hopefully, and yeah, it will continue to grow, so that's great. It's a good starting point.