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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v MERCURY

October 1, 2009

Lin Dunn

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Two

Indiana Fever Â– 93
Phoenix Mercury - 84

THE MODERATOR: Coach, congrats on the win if you want to start with an opening statement and then we will go into questions.
LIN DUNN: I thought we did tonight what I wish we'd done the other night, we had a great defensive effort. The difference in 84 points and 120 is -- I'm not a math major, you'll have to tell me, but it's a significant amount of points. I thought the fact that we were more focused on our defense, we really, really keyed in on that. I thought that was a significant factor in our win. We allowed no second-chance points in the first half, only allowed 9 in the game, and then we attacked and got to the free-throw line. Those were the three things that I thought we had to do to win and our bench came up big, Jessica Davenport, Briann January, and Tamecka Dixon were keys to us winning here tonight.

Q. Lin you got a much bigger night from Tamika, she was one short of a triple-double --
LIN DUNN: I expect that every night. She had a super game. Early on she was attacking off the dribble, she didn't get into any foul trouble so she was able to get into an offensive rhythm. We were running sets for her to get going, so when she can stay in the game and not get into foul trouble. She is a totally different ballplayer, and she was one of six in double figures, I thought that was a key, too.

Q. Coach, in the first half, how big was it when you had the lead then the Mercury responded? They went on a run and then you went into the half going on a run to regain the lead. How much of a confidence booster was that for you?
LIN DUNN: Well, we expect them to go on runs. That's the type of team they are, and to match the runs, and we knew one was coming. So it was them trying to catch up to us, and us trying to catch up to them. And even down the stretch I knew it was important for them to -- I think the closest they got was 6 or 7. They have the capacity to score so quickly, and at times we let the zone bother us, and at times we didn't. I thought every time they had a run we matched it, and that's good to see, especially in their home arena.

Q. Lin you said you guys had to steal one here to get one on their home court. What kind of momentum does this send you back with?
LIN DUNN: Well, it makes us even so now we're back to even and we go back to our arena. I'm confident it will be sold out. There will be amazing, wonderful, crazy, Hoosier, Indiana Fever fans to welcome us back and having the opportunity to go home and play even is much better for us than, say, if we were 0-2.
We thought we could steal the first game, but we just didn't defend well enough and our players were not discouraged, they were not down, they were very optimistic about, okay, Coach keeps talking about if we defend better we'll win, and it's true.

Q. Coach, can you talk about the defensive effort -- Diana Taurasi, 7 of 22, Cappie Pondexter, 5 of 16 -- they're the main 1-2 punch of this team, and you held them in check and made 'em work.
LIN DUNN: I thought we did a good job of keeping them on one side of the floor and adjusting our two-man scheme so that it was disruptive to them. We rotated people on them, everybody, everything on the perimeter at one time or another defended Cappie and Diana, so I thought we did well with that and we gave a shot up for Willingham or Tangela, but the plan was not to let Cappie and Diana beat us, and Penny Taylor, I'm not sure what happened to her. Did she get hurt?

Q. Split her lip.
LIN DUNN: Okay.

Q. Coach, your thoughts on Cappie Pondexter. I saw on the replay you were calling for a flagrant foul and after Tamika got the rebound on that one play she knocked Tamika over on the sidelines, was Cappie Pondexter playing overly aggressive in the game?
LIN DUNN: I don't think she was overly aggressive. It was obvious we had the game in hand, and when you're at home and the game is slipping away, sometimes your frustration shows. I know Cappie. She is a great sportsman. I didn't think anything. I was just trying to get the referee to give me an extra something.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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