WNBA FINALS: MONARCHS v SUN

September 20, 2005

Yolanda Griffith

YOLANDA GRIFFITH: I haven't really had any yet. I got in the locker room and everybody was popping the corks and I was just still hugging and jumping up for joy. I haven't had any champagne yet. I will later on. But it feels great to actually feel what all the other champions have felt so far in the WNBA. It's just a dream come true. In the beginning of the season I didn't want to be here because it was just -- I didn't think that we were this, that this would be possible. But I'm glad I decided to stay. When I signed my contract, Coach Whisenant told me this was my team. And he needed me to teach the young players how to mature at a young age. If it was not for my teammates being hungry like me and feeling the pain I felt so many years being in Sacramento, not being able to get over that hump -- I mean we had some young players that was hungry and they listened and they were determined. We beat each other up day in and day out in practice. We had some crucial injuries with DeMya going down, Ticha going down in the playoffs against Houston. I've been hurt half the season. My knee right now is swollen like a big cantaloupe, but I knew that we were determined to be the champions from the way we started and all the injuries that we had and it didn't matter who stepped on the court, we stayed as a team, we were determined. And it's just a dream come true. And once you win one, you're hungry to win another one. So we'll be back next year.

YOLANDA GRIFFITH: We are were not hitting shots. We were not hitting shots. They were slowing down our transition offensively. We were just pressing too hard. When things are not going right, we tend to hold our heads down, but not tonight. Not in the playoffs. We always was determined as individuals. You know when you're playing good and you know when you're playing bad. And at halftime as bad as we were playing, we were only down by five points, five or six points. And the second half, we just, we always tend to talk to each other, we just sit in the locker room and analyze ourselves as individuals, knowing what we have to do. We hit some shots, we ran our offense, we crashed the boards. They out rebounded us tonight but we ran our offense the way we needed to. We played defense. And that's why we got back in the game. That's why we won tonight. We were just playing too tentative. We were playing tight. And in championship game, being like it was tonight, we knew that was going to happen. Coach told us everything what they were going to run, do to us, but we settled down in the second half and played Monarchs basketball, offensively and defensively. And that's how we got this victory tonight.

YOLANDA GRIFFITH: The same thing that happened in Game 2 was not going to happen tonight. It actually happened in Game 3. They were trying to get a three-pointer, and we just switched everything. They needed a three. And the mistake that we made in Game 2 was not going to happen tonight, no matter what. They needed a three. They didn't need a two. They needed a three. So we just switched everything and was able to -- when Kesha Sales shot an air ball, we had the ball in the last second. We just had to make sure somebody touched the ball to make sure the clock ran out. You are going to make mistakes. But you got to learn from them and be hungry and be determined not to let it happen again. No matter what happened in Game 2, we still felt we should have won that game. But it's always good to win in Sacramento. It's always good to win it on your home court. And the fans, our fans, have been supporting us from the beginning of me being in the WNBA, to where we are now. I just want to say thank you to the fans, thank you to everybody that's out there that's been supporting us this year. It's unreal. Like I said, we got it this year, we want to get it again. So we're going to be hungry. And I have some young players that's stepped up big tonight. Rebekkah Brunson has been struggling but she told me tonight she had my back. And I trust my teammates. I knew the second half we was going to come out and play. And that's what we did. And like Kara Lawson, she's a warrior, she hit a big three. Once she hit that, she was ready. We trust in each other, we have a young team, but a young team that's hungry and was determined to get this win tonight. 7 o'clock a.m. flight to Connecticut? I don't think so. (Laughter.) We needed to win tonight.

YOLANDA GRIFFITH: You're welcome.