In the Fever's 84-70 win over the Sky, they snapped a three-game losing streak and broke the six-game winning streak of their opponents.
Tamika Catchings also surpassed Lisa Leslie as the all-time career free throws leader in making her 1,478th shot.
The Silver Stars dominated overtime to beat the Sparks, 98-85.
Coach post-game quotes:
Silver Stars Head Coach Dan Hughes
(On needing to have a weak practice coming off the Seattle game…)
“I thought by and large we did that, it’s just that L.A. is a confident team. They’re going to make runs at you and they did. I thought they shot the ball extremely well and Candace (Parker) is such a difficult guard for us and we were fortunate they’re coming off three games in four days.”
(On being pleased about the tempo of the game and a strong overtime effort…)
“We tried to keep the tempo up. I was pleased to see us deal with the fact that good teams are going to come back like L.A. did and then we had to sub in the overtime because we were starting to get tired with that group and then the new group jelled in the overtime and gave us good play. That’s what good teams do in those situations. Good teams like L.A. are going to make runs at you and us becoming a good team means we answer those runs.”
(On a wide variety of players stepping up …)
“Our bench is huge. You’re looking at 36 points off of them, we had 41 last time, and that’s just a real signature for us and part of our DNA. ”
(On leadership of Sophia Young…)
“The leadership of Sophia Young was amazing. Sophia Young played with an intensity that was infectious for us. I’ve benefited from watching a lot of Sophia’s games but that one really showed not only her offensive end but her defensive end, she was incredibly active and really led us in this situation.”
Los Angeles Sparks Coach Carol Ross
(Thoughts on the game...)
“I was incredibly proud of our team. I thought we had to overcome a lot of obstacles and adversity playing without Nneka (Ogwumike). We have two players at home with injuries, were short handed on a back-to-back, and I thought there was a lot of adversity over the course of the game, which we couldn’t overcome.”
(On the players being fatigued in overtime after playing the night before...)
“I think that and a couple of other factors probably took a little wind out of our sails.”
(On defending Sophia Young...)
“I thought we guarded her as hard as we could. She made some incredible shots. She is a great player and she’s a handful. Obviously her offense was a little better than our defense, but that’s all on her. She played great.”
__________
The Sparks were missing rookie starter Nnemkadi Ogwumike, who flew to Stanford University for her graduation tomorrow.
After having played three games in four days, the Sparks head back to Los Angeles to have a day off tomorrow, followed by Monday and Wednesday home games.
Tomorrow Connecticut will be at Atlanta, Phoenix will play at Tulsa, and Minnesota will take on Seattle. Can the Lynx make it 11 consecutive wins? Lynx historic start photo gallery.
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1 comment:
5 games in 7 days, including a cross country road trip is is a little nuts if you ask me. When you add that to the fact that LA had only 8 players and turned the balls over 18 times is an obvious clue as to why they lost. But the disparity in fouls called is concerning. LA got called for a lot of ticky tack stuff, that seemed to go unnoticed on the other end. Not sure what they were watching, but as usual refs are impacting the outcome of games.
And a tip of the hat to Minnesota. They are showing what a healthy, cohesive, consistent and talented team is all about. LA is lacking 3 of 4 of those traits... One of them is out of their control, they have talent but the others just seem a little out of their reach right now, with consistency being their biggest flaw. The Lynx players bring it every game, you can see the fire in their eyes. You can also see the cohesiveness in their play. Of course they have a year of togetherness under their belts, but there is just something about their "swagger" that says winner, and they go out and produce.
I hope to see the same kind of swag in Staples in the near future.
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