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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v MERCURY

October 7, 2009

Lin Dunn

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA: Game Four

Phoenix Mercury 90
Indiana Fever 77

THE MODERATOR: Coach, whenever you're ready start with your opening statement.
COACH LIN DUNN: I thought Phoenix shot the ball extremely well tonight. I thought we had some moments when our defense broke down a little bit. But at the end of the day when you're able to outrebound this team and able to get more points in the paint, more second-chance points but you don't shoot well like we did. It's going to be hard for us to win when Katie Douglas is 2-for-14, Briann is 1-for-9. I thought there were times there where we missed shots that we needed to hit, to keep up with the offensive firepower that Phoenix has.
You know, if you can keep them around 90, between 85 and 90, that's what we've been doing to kinda beat them. So I was disappointed that we didn't knock down some of our open shots. The layups around the basket, the outside shots we were 2-for-18 from the 3, and at the end of the day we didn't score enough points.

Q. Coach, early in the fourth quarter Tamika with a steal, takes it down and gets it within four. Are there moments in a ballgame where you as a coach say things aren't going our way but maybe this might be our lift?
COACH LIN DUNN: Absolutely. Every time we got down, we would make another run and make another run, and then when we would miss a layup or a shot around the basket we let it deflate us a little bit and then they would come down and maybe get an offensive rebound after we'd played hard and turn it into a basket.
I just thought we let the fact that we weren't shooting as well as we could from the 3-point line; the other night we hit 10 three's, tonight we hit 2. What I said to the players is if everyone who played hits one more shot, just one, which could have easily happened, when you look at the shots that everybody had, there's 20 points and we're short 13. So we've got to do a better job of putting the ball in the hole.

Q. Coach, I know that over the last couple of days you've said repeatedly that boxing out, rebounding, preventing those second-chance points is a priority for you in this game. That seemed to fall apart particularly in the fourth quarter, can you talk about that? How were they keeping you off the boards?
COACH LIN DUNN: Well, I just think we -- what we did, in my opinion, we let our shots that we missed, you know what I'm saying? Our open shots, our good looks, we let that bother us so that our focus on the other end was not as it should be, do you know what I'm saying? We let it carry over to the other end, but they only got four offensive rebounds, they got key ones or they rotated the basketball and hit a big three with two seconds on the clock. And you got to give them credit, they stepped up and hit shots when they needed to and we didn't.

Q. Lin, did you detect that some of your players were tentative, where nobody wanted to step up and take the shot in the fourth?
COACH LIN DUNN: I think when Katie and Bri missed as much as they missed, they got gun-shy but of course we wanted them to keep shooting. We wanted Tammy to keep shooting inside but some players tend to say, maybe I'll make an extra pass since I missed four or five in a row. I thought Katie got some great looks, looks that she has been knocking down from the 3-point to the rim. So maybe there toward the end she passed up some shots because she had missed 'em, but we got to keep shooting, take the open shot.

Q. Coach, you have one at Phoenix, I know you wanted to close it out here at home. Do you have to stress that to your team, hey, we have one there and can win there?
COACH LIN DUNN: I think what I have to stress to the team is we have to do it the hard way. They had to do it the hard way, tonight they had to win, and now we've got to go out there and do it the hard way. Everybody needs to understand the only situation we've got here is we're tied. We're tied. We've got to go out there, knock down a few more shots, get a couple more defensive stops and let's see what happens. We've already proven we can score well out there, so we'll see.

Q. The last couple of games Coach Gaines has been saying it wasn't anything in particular you were doing to him on defense, shots just weren't falling. Is that your take on what was happening tonight or were they doing something defensively to you?
COACH LIN DUNN: They scored 90 points, I think we had some intentional fouls down there, so between 85 and 90 points that's ideal for us to keep them there. That's under what they average, but at the end of the day what we need to do is score 93 while they score 90. 77 points against them is not going to do it.
Now like he says, I don't think there is anything we need to do, we just need to hit the layups and the three's. Instead of being 2-for-18 we need to be 6-for-18. There's four more threes. There's 12 or 13 more points.

Q. So it wasn't an adjustment --
COACH LIN DUNN: I'll have to look at the tape but I know there were wide-open shots we missed, and I know Tammy missed some wide-open layups. Katie missed some layups in there. I didn't think she got fouled, she's just got to finish those shots. I give them credit, they played hard but I thought we missed some open shots. Katie Douglas, you've seen her shoot, she doesn't usually shoot 2-for-14. I thought Tamika Catchings was scoring well, she was aggressive. But they had five people in double figures; we had three. There is the difference in the ballgame.

Q. When Catchings went down with four fouls do you think the team kind of lost its way a little bit?
COACH LIN DUNN: When what now?

Q. When Catchings went down with four fouls, do you think the team --
COACH LIN DUNN: Four fouls doesn't mean anything. You get six. So I don't think that was a factor.

Q. They just didn't seem to --
COACH LIN DUNN: I think the only thing that affected our players tonight were some defensive breakdowns and missing open shots. When you're playing somebody that's so offensively oriented and so good at scoring as they are, you have to keep up with them. You have to score. If we can hold them to 90, we've got to score 95. We've got to score 94. We've got to hit -- like I said, we can't be 2-for-18 from the 3-point line, we've got to knock down some shots.

Q. What do you think were behind those offensive problems?
COACH LIN DUNN: I have no idea. Sometimes you hit shots, sometimes you don't. Diana Taurasi, they've been talking about how she has been struggling from the field over three games, sometimes you hit shots, sometimes you don't. That's the way the game is. If you hit every shot there is no telling what the score would be.
THE MODERATOR: Okay, Coach.
COACH LIN DUNN: I want to thank the crowd for coming out tonight. Couldn't thank them enough for their support. Thank you, guys.

End of FastScripts

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