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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v MERCURYOctober 1, 2009Tamika CatchingsBriann JanuaryPHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Two Indiana Fever – 93 Q. Tamika, this was a different night for you. What was the change in your mind set and the change in the game? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: I definitely felt the thing I needed to focus on was being more aggressive and taking out of foul trouble. Being on the court it was a different team out there, so being aggressive and stay staying on the court, staying out of foul trouble. Q. Tamika, how important is it to steal one on the road? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: Huge, huge for us! Coming into tonight's game we looked at the film after of Game 1 and the feel among each other was being able to hang in the game, go into overtime. And not being able to finish it out was a big deal. But we watched tape and looked at the things we needed to do differently and came out tonight. Our bench gave -- our bench was absolutely amazing tonight! Bri always is amazing but Jessica Davenport stepping off the bench, Ja Mo, Jessica, Tamecka Dixon, everybody did a great job. Q. You stole my question. I was going to ask about the bench, but Briann January, you can talk to that. BRIANN JANUARY: Our starters have confidence, and they encourage us all the time. And our role is to maintain, and they have so much confidence in us it gives us confidence when with we step out on the court. Q. Catch, Diana Taurasi has been struggling with her shot can you talk about that? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: Do not underestimate Diana Taurasi ever, for my job, it's to play defense on D.T., I give her props, and it's a hard job. It's not easy by any means but for me making sure I'm there when she catches the ball being right there and Diana is going to -- she's a crafty player. So she is going to figure out how to get around, how to get to the basket, down the stretch, Cappie started stepping up but you never underestimate what Diana can do, she is going to look at both these tapes and be ready for Game 3. Q. You had six players in double figures talk about the balance and how important that was. BRIANN JANUARY: Yeah, you know, we have so many scorers on our team. We trust when we penetrate and kick, everybody just is told to be ready, be locked and loaded because we have people that penetrate and when you find 'em we want you to put it up. Everybody on our team does a great job of finding each other and sharing the ball. We get people in double figures when you have people ready to score. TAMIKA CATCHINGS: That goes back to the confidence, having confidence in one another and believing that, hey, if I pass you the ball I expect you to shoot and I know that it's going in and even if it doesn't go in we know we have somebody down there to potentially get the rebound and everybody having that mentality, that helps. Q. Tamika if I could follow up on the question a little more. Coach Gaines said you weren't doing anything differently, but you had results. Were you doing something different? What was it? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: Mixing it up more. Diana, her mindset, she's able to read how people play her. If you shoot the gap she knows how to fade. If you trail her she locks and curls, and for me trying to switch it up so she doesn't get comfortable with me doing the whole thing one game, one scheme. So pushing her into my teammates and letting them help so that offensively we really play Diana. It's not just me individually. It's the whole team that focuses on Diana. Q. We spent time yesterday talking about pace and tempo and how fast you guys want to play, was this the pace you guys wanted to play tonight? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: I believe it is. You know, a lot of people question whether or not we can get up and down with them and, you know, I think that -- we are a team in the east that has consistently gotten up and down in transition buckets off of turnovers. We do run. I think the key has been for us, they want to run all the time and we have to learn when to slow it down. I know sometimes they score two or three in a row, and at that point in time we got to as a team slow it down, get the ball down low. We did a great job. Tammy Sutton-Brown, Ebony, Jessica Davenport, Jessica Moore, slowing it down, pounding the ball inside, so we're not getting caught up in the running game. Q. What seems impressive for your squad this evening, it seemed like whenever the Mercury would go on some run, you would answer by scoring, getting a key rebound, disrupting the flow and taking control of the game. TAMIKA CATCHINGS: That's what the game is all about, and that's what we have to continue to do. From the first game, one of the things we looked at was rebounding. They had 12 rebounds, 24 second-chance points, and that was the first game. We came into the game knowing what we've got to do, keep 'em off the boards on the offensive end especially and one and done for most of the game. I know they got a couple here and there, but we did a good job, and definitely there are going to be runs from both teams and how you answer the runs. It's not always about scoring it's about getting a defensive stop, getting the ball here and there, stopping Diana, stopping Cappie, doing different things like that. THE MODERATOR: Thanks very much, ladies. End of FastScripts |
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