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WNBA FINALS: MERCURY v SHOCK

September 13, 2007

Katie Smith

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Four

KAREN KASE: We'll go right to questions for Katie.

Q. First of all, can you just talk about the disappointment and getting so close and having to go play one more game.
KATIE SMITH: Disappointed. I think we played hard, I don't think we played great basketball. I think we had spurts where we had too many turnovers, getting back in transition, maybe bad decisions on offense. So disappointed that it was kind of right there and didn't quite seize the moment.

Q. Could you please talk about the physicalness of the game and what happened to your eye.
KATIE SMITH: Physicalness of the game, it is what it is. It's basketball. I don't necessarily think anything is outrageous or different. This is what the league is. This is what we do every day.
But I got hit in the eye with an offhand and no, it is what it is. We just want it to be as long as they call the game fair, we're good. And tonight it was fine. It's just that they made more plays, made shots down the stretch. We couldn't get a stop or a rebound. But it didn't come down to the last couple of plays, it came down to the whole game.

Q. How was Cappie able to break through like she did in the second half?
KATIE SMITH: Honestly, I'm not real sure of obviously kind of strung out on Diana, but I think they went a lot of high pick and rolls with Cappie and sometimes she used them, sometimes she didn't. And got in the lane, tried to help off of Miller a little bit. And she nailed a couple shots, big shots for them. So she just kind of isolated up front and obviously we'll have to look at than see how we can guard that. But she had made a couple tough moves and Tweety is a great defender and she stuck with it on that last offensive rebound and put back, so.

Q. Seems like you guys had a chance to put them away there in the third quarter. Can you talk about that moment again?
KATIE SMITH: We hit a couple buckets, got a little cushion, not much against them.
And it they came and pushed it right down our throats. We had an, offensively, had a couple turnovers. And they had a couple run outs on us and we weren't matched up and they knocked down some shots. So the momentum, obviously, they, whatever we had, they took away. And basically back to an even playing field.
But, yeah, would have liked to have kind of extended that a little bit but obviously didn't take advantage of that.

Q. What kind of shot did you guys want to get on that last possession?
KATIE SMITH: Obviously wanted to try to get Tweety the ball, we ran a man set against their zone, didn't quite open up. They kind of were crowded in the middle. And then we just wanted, honestly, to just somehow, obviously, get Tweety the ball and let her break it down a little bit and obviously they ran at her and Pee Wee got a shot in the corner and got a tough shot off in the corner at least.

Q. Talk about how tough Diana is to handle in contrast with the other defenders you've gone against?
KATIE SMITH: She's tough because she's a big guard. She can, when she's driving, she's pretty quick and but she's also got a body that she can bump you off with. Obviously her range, you have to respect her range and at least guard her, even past the 3-putt line. She's good at transition. She got a couple looks in transition that she hit when we weren't matched up or I took somebody else and somebody else had to pick her up and we were in a little bit of miscommunication.
So she took advantage of those opportunities because it's obviously we do a decent job of her, with her in the half court and she's getting good picks set for her and she will knock them down. But we had to limit the ones that she gets in transition where she's flat out open and in those quick ones. So the other ones, we'll take, she can earn those and as I said the transition ones are the ones that we would like to limit.

Q. You played often without Cheryl this season, but did it, was it a little rattling just to see her go down like that at the last couple seconds?
KATIE SMITH: Disappointing. Obviously we're hurting for her. She's been battling. She he's every day doing rehab and doing treatment and anybody that's had an injury that's just a pain. It's just you spend hours and hours and hours. And you just try to get it going and she's come out and she's played a lot of minutes and through a lot of pain and you know what, thank her for everything she's given an and hopefully she will be back at it on Sunday.
If not, by all means we have enough to play good basketball and I hope everybody's excited about the chance if she plays or not. It will give more minutes for somebody to make a difference and let's hope we all take advantage of that.

End of FastScripts

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