WNBA FINALS: MONARCHS v SUN

September 19, 2005

Mike Thibault

COACH MIKE THIBAULT: As long as you're close, five minutes, two minutes, as long as you're close, I feel like we'll play well at the end. We just played -- I don't want to be in that position. I would rather be up five or six. Because we have played uphill a lot in this series. We have always had to keep coming back in this series. I would like to see us get in a situation in the game where we can dictate a little bit more of what goes on and kind of be more in control of our fate than we have been in Game 1 and 3.

COACH MIKE THIBAULT: Well, it's funny, because statistically you can look at defense in two ways: Defensive field goal percentage has been good. Their basic offense has not hurt us. So we have done a good job defensively. But we haven't created the turnovers that they have created. Our turnovers have been disastrous. They get 20 points out of it and we get none out of the ones we create. That's just, you can't make up that difference easily. If we would just get our hands into five or six more turnovers or steals and can create some points for us, it would even it up a little bit. But yesterday it was, between that and offensive boards, we didn't give ourselves much of a chance. The fact that we were down two was almost a miracle with three minutes to go.

COACH MIKE THIBAULT: Oh, probably a little bit of everything. We got run-outs and they had to get back and start scrambling defensively, which is what we need them to do. We played better defense, we got our hands involved a little bit. We did a better job of rebounding the ball during that stretch. And it created some shots for us. Nykesha got going big time during that stretch and made some tough shots, but that's what you have to do to make some shots in the series. Powell made her yesterday and Kesh made hers, but we didn't get a lot of other things. Other than her and Taj yesterday, we need to get a few more people involved offensively if we're going to win tomorrow.