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WNBA FINALS: FEVER v MERCURY

October 9, 2009

Corey Gaines

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Game Five

Phoenix Â– 94
Indiana - 86

COACH GAINES: First, let me say, Indiana is a great team. They thought us every game. Their defense -- which I'm an offensive guy and their defense really taught me a lesson, if you want to say that. I learned some stuff.
My hat goes off to them because they fought a hard game, and they played us in a tough series. We overcame what they were doing to us. The players really executed what I was planning to do out there on offense, and it really helped us.
I've never been so emotionally tired in my life. The up's and down's of this series was tough. And you really don't think things like that will affect you until you get into that situation. I can't say enough about Cappie, Dee, Penny, Tangela, the whole team came through and especially Cappie. She got injured and I wasn't sure she was going to come back in the second half and she came back and -- boy, did she come back! It was a great win for us, great win for the city of Phoenix, great win for the organization. Just a great win.

Q. Corey, you guys started slow and in the second quarter, I think you hit 11 out of 12 in one stretch and shot 70% in the quarter. Was there an adjustment there?
COACH GAINES: No, what happened, they hit a couple of shots like they've been doing in the series and we missed a couple and they went to the line.
When a team goes to the free-throw line against us, it slows us down because the game slows down to a regular style basketball game. I don't know exactly how many free-throws they shot in the first quarter, but I know it was over eight. I'm guessing over eight, and it slows the tempo and it's more in their favor.
Second quarter there were less free-throws for them, and we got more fast-break opportunities.

Q. Coach, you mentioned Cappie. What happened to her that you thought she couldn't come out the second half?
COACH GAINES: She got hit with an elbow. I'm not sure of the medical term for it. I know when she was walking off the floor I was worried because she was walking like she couldn't see and she said to me, "I can't see out of my eye." I think she took an elbow to the eye socket and it traumatized the eye and that's why she didn't come back out.
Right now the eye socket is blood. It's a black eye, and she couldn't see. And I was afraid she wouldn't come back for the rest of the game, but Cappie is my X-factor. I've always called her the X-factor. People always ask me why. That's because Cappie doesn't need a play in order score points. When things go bad, we get the ball to Cappie and get out of the way. It's a gift that she has, and it's a gift that helps our team.

Q. Can you talk about how Diana embraces these moments in these games. She's 0-3 in the first quarter, has two points, and then the second quarter -- basically in the first six minutes took the game over for you guys.
COACH GAINES: Everybody was saying, Why isn't Diana scoring? It took me a little bit of time to get her in the right position, because that's my job to get her in the right position so she can score. She is a big-time scorer but you have to get her in the right position.
Indiana's defense, the first couple of games was predicated on stopping us from using our pick-and-rolls. And it took me a while to figure out -- trying to be stubborn rather than fight through the situation with my offensive scheme. I took a step back and said use what they are doing against them, use their strength against them. So I took the pick-and-roll to the middle of the floor, and we eliminated their defense. And it helped Diana tremendously.

Q. This series has raised the popularity of the WNBA it seems if you look at the television ratings and whatnot. How does the league capitalize on this?
COACH GAINES: Hopefully people saw a great series. If people hadn't seen the WNBA before, I hope the up-tempo style of play entices people to watch. I had a couple of friends of mine who had never watched the WNBA. Even when I was coaching, they didn't watch it.
But after the first game of 120 points, they tuned in and they saw that style of play -- I don't consider it the WNBA. I consider them players. When I first started coaching in the WNBA Coach Westhead, who is my mentor, who we owe this championship to as much as him being here right now. He told me, "We're going to coach the players as players, not women, ball players."
And it's funny how they embraced it because they enjoyed being treated that way. Instead of being treated as women basketball players, we treat them as ball players. And they like the different style of play and they can do it, as you can see.

Q. Coach, can you talk about being down 2-1 and rallying to win the series?
COACH GAINES: Out in front when we were getting the confetti from the top of the roof on us, I said we had a lot of experienced players on this team. And they've been in this situation before, in 2007. And, of course, this is a different team, a different demeanor of our squad; but you have to remember you can't teach experience. They have experience from college, Olympics, the Russian league, European league. I have champions on my team from all those leagues and the WNBA.
And you can't just say this is going to happen. This is going to happen. They have to experience it, and they've all experienced it.

Q. Can this team repeat?
COACH GAINES: Wow, I didn't get 30 minutes. (Laughter.) We're going to talk to Ann Meyers, who is the GM, who helped put this team together. And, of course, like every year, the teams who didn't win the championship are going to come back better. We have a couple of pieces we need to fill and make our team better and I'll say we'll be a good team.
Speechless.

Q. What are the pieces you think you need to fill, Coach?
COACH GAINES: I think we may need another banger, someone who is down low, getting those rebounds for us. You know, we have rebounders now, a little more height on it, a little more strength.
Just to add to when we do play against people like Indiana. Tangela did her job. Le'coe did her job. DeWanna did her job. But we need to get better at that spot, it will help us out. It will give us more attempts at the basket, and the more attempts we have the better we'll do.

Q. Coach, talk about Dee there. It wasn't just Dee or Cappie. It was Tan, D.B. There were several players when it was tied at 80, there were several that contributed. Can you talk about that?
COACH GAINES: Then again, what happened was they picked it up a little bit. They upped the pace. Their strategy was to attack us on the inside.
What happened was they were scoring inside so the game slows down again. So I started calling a couple of plays which I had to, couple of plays that used Tangela in the pick-and-roll high for her to pop because Cappie was going so well. When she comes off, she demanded the double team. And I told Cappie when she came off to stretch the defense; and Tangela being the veteran that she is she hit those two big shots.

Q. Coach, talk about the series that DeWanna had and her game tonight?
COACH GAINES: We were teasing DeWanna saying that she was playing like a rookie for the first time in these playoffs. She didn't play like a rookie tonight. It wasn't her fault. She was sick. She had a 102 temperature in Indiana. And it wasn't that I didn't trust her to play. She wouldn't play. And we kept that to ourselves, and she was herself tonight, that was DeWanna that you saw tonight. In Indiana she couldn't play. She tried. I mean she tried but she was too weak.

Q. I wanted to say congratulations, Coach, on the championship.
COACH GAINES: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)

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