WNBA FINALS: MONARCHS v SUN

September 19, 2005

Nykesha Sales

NYKESHA SALES: Yeah, it's definitely possible. You can tell by maybe loose balls, people getting on loose balls. People just taking care of their assignments and concentrating a lot better. But you can definitely tell when a team wants it more. And I think they wanted it a little more than we did yesterday. We watched film and you could tell that there was just little things that you could tell which team really wants it more that night. You can't say that they want a championship more than us throughout the series, but in certain games you could tell which team wanted it more.

NYKESHA SALES: Taking care of the ball. We had a lot more turnovers than they did. Recognizing our defense. I think we had a few defensive breakdowns on assignments and what the game plan is. Some of the players being a little confused or not all in sync. Maybe a few more offensive rebounds. Not a lot of us got a lot of offensive rebounds. So we need to crash the boards a little more instead of just seeing a shot go up and getting back. Those are all extra possessions for us. And those are the little things that we can do to make ourselves better and more confident, rather than worrying about how to stop them.

NYKESHA SALES: I think so. I think usually when we are against the wall we probably dig a little deeper. That's not good, hopefully you want to be, to have that mentality throughout the whole series. But after the first loss, knowing we were against the wall, we had to come with something, now we know the atmosphere here a little bit and what to expect, so maybe we can come out and be a little more aggressive the next game. We kind of just got to get your feet wet. And with a five-game series, you have time to do that. So hopefully we can bounce back and bring it back home. But we definitely have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

NYKESHA SALES: Yeah, I know it's frustrating for her more than us. It's just like I know she wants to be out there. She knows what she can do for this team, but she's limited. And it might be a little physical, but it might be a lot mental, too. Just knowing that you're playing with a knee brace you haven't played with all year long and knowing it's holding you back. She has incredible speed and does a lot around the basket. So it's frustrating but we just have to find a way. The second game we played we kind of through some other players in there and did some great things. So we just got to make decisions and whatever works best for us.