August 27, 1998

Coach Cheryl Miller, Phoenix Mercury

Head Coach Cheryl Miller

Q: Any comments about the game?
Miller: I am not looking forward to Games 2 and 3, that's for sure. Houston is a great team. That shot by Sheryl (Swoopes) at the end -- I am surprised it didn't go down. I thought Houston played well. It is tough beating the defending champs. They are champions for a lot of reasons and that was very evident tonight.

Q: [Cynthia] Cooper scored a lot, the rest of her team didn't. Was that the plan?
Miller: Well you can't stop a Cooper. And it is difficult to stop a Tina Thompson and Sheryl Swoopes also. What you do is try to minimize the damage. That is what we try to do. Cooper will get hers, whether it is 29 like tonight, or 30, 40, even 50 points. If you keep other players from contributing and energizing their team, you have a chance of winning.

Q: Can you talk about Jennifer Gillom's clutch play?
Miller: The shots she were getting down the stretch, they were her shots, they were just rolling around the rim and coming out. However, Jennifer understands that there are certain fundamental truths that happen during a basketball game. I mean, Jennifer is a great player just like Cooper is a great player and they make plays down the stretch. She was able to do that and we made sure on our last play that we would get it to Jennifer. We wanted to move it side to side to catch them cheating and find someone wide open. That wasn't the case and we gave it to our best player, our Most Valuable Player.

Q: Was that last play the one you designed?
Miller: Yes, we scored. It was exactly the way that I had diagrammed it.

Q: Talk about the poor shooting by both teams?
Miller: Defense and nerves. I don't think this series will be a bunch of scores in the 80's because they have played great defense all year. And that is also what we have hung our hat on all season -- being able to stop you from scoring. This series is going to come down to who wants it the most and execution down the stretch. Both teams must try and minimize the other's runs because both teams can score points in spurts.

Q: Can you talk about the postgame celebrations you and your players have here at America West Arena?
Miller: Its just a genuine love affair with us and our fans. I am real thankful to our fans. If you're here, you can tell the affection between this team, staff and fans. When we were counted out early in the year, our fans still showed up in record numbers, so it is just our way of acknowledging them and thanking them for being so great.

Bridget Pettis, Phoenix Mercury
Umeki Webb, Phoenix Mercury
Michelle Griffiths, Phoenix Mercury
Kristi Harrower, Phoenix Mercury

Bridget Pettis

Umeki Webb

Michelle Griffiths

Kristi Harrower

Q. What are your thoughts on the game tonight?
Pettis: It was a war out there. You can tell this was a championship game because everyone was playing 100 percent. Houston is a great team and it's not over yet. We do have an advantage over them and all we have to do is steal one on the road.

Q. What does the Mercury need to do on Saturday to win the Championship?
Pettis: We need to lessen our turnovers. We were lucky to be at home tonight with a lot of momentum, but we all know that Houston is going to turn up their game at home and we need to lessen our turnovers and do a better job of containing Cooper. Cooper did a great job tonight, but we did a great job on everyone else.

Q. What do you think needs to happen on Saturday for the Mercury to win the WNBA Championship?
Webb: Saturday is going to much harder than today. Playing on the road is always tough, but it would be a great thing to win and celebrate on Houston's court.

Q. What are you thoughts on tonight's game?
Griffiths: Obviously Cooper is always going to score her points but we did a good job of eliminating the scoring of the other players.

Q: What are your thoughts on tonight's game?
Harrower: I thought we played real well. We kept them to 51 points. Offensively, we had a stage where we couldn't score, but then we just cranked it up and cranked up our defense as well. Cooper got her 29 points, but we were able to keep Swoopes to eight and kept the other players under 10 points and that was our goal tonight.

Q: What are your thoughts for Saturday's game?
Harrower: Saturday is going to be even tougher because we're on the road and they're at home. We have to try to stop their running game and stay poised in our offense.

Jennifer Gillom, Phoenix Mercury
Michele Timms, Phoenix Mercury

Jennifer Gillom

Michele Timms

Q: How did it feel to hit the game-winning shot?
Gillom: It felt great because I was struggling all night tonight. But I hit the most important shot. I don't care if I hadn't made a point all night. As long as I made the last one to win the game, that's all that counts.

Q: You came up big on the game-winning shot. Can you comment on that?
Gillom: I was struggling all night. When Cheryl was designing the play, I was supposed to be used as a decoy, but the ball ended up in my hands and I saw Michele on the wing open. I was down low by the basket and I saw I had Tina Thompson one-on-one and I just made the decision that I was going to take the shot and hey, it went in and we won.

Q: No hesitancy on your part despite the fact you were struggling most of the night?
Gillom: No, not at all. I never stopped believing even though I had a terrible shooting night. I want to be the one who has the ball in my hands. That's just me.

Q: Michele, can you talk about the low shooting percentages by both teams?
Timms: I think you have to understand, this is the grand finale series, isn't it? There's pressure on both teams. It's super aggressive out there as you saw tonight. That's one of the reasons. You have to give credit to both teams for their defensive efforts.

Q: How big was the bench tonight?
Timms: The bench has been incredible for us all season. Kristi Harrower came in and played 16 of the most valuable minutes she has played for us. We feel very fortunate to have the bench we've had. At lots of times throughout the season, they've come on and played with poise. And they have taken us from a relatively slow start to positioning us to play good poised offense and sending us back out and giving us a little bit of a lead to run with. They've been fantastic for us all season. It's not a surprise to anyone on our team in what they did tonight.

Coach Cheryl Miller, Phoenix Mercury (Lifetime Television interview)

Miller: They are a very poised, very talented, a no-quit team. We will have our hands full in Houston.

Q: How important was winning this game at home?
Miller: I think Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz said it the best: There's no place like home.

Coach Van Chancellor, Houston Comets

Head Coach Van Chancellor

Opening statement: I thought Phoenix played well, and did a great job. Jennifer Gillom struggled all game, and she hit a big shot at the end of the game to beat us. But for us to have a shot at a three-pointer to tie it at the end after shooting 32 percent and getting out-rebounded by nine times. I was amazed that we even had a shot at the end.

Q: Did you want to double down quicker on Jennifer (Gillom) at the end?
Chancellor: We should have, but we had a little miscommunication, probably poor coaching. I should have made it clearer to not let her beat us.

Q: Did you tell the team in the huddle before the last play to not let Jennifer beat you?
Chancellor: No, I just told them exactly what play the Mercury were going to run. I told them to make sure we could double down and let somebody else beat us. We should have forced her to kick it back out because I have just seen her make too many big shots all year.

Q: Why was your team's shooting so poor?
Chancellor: Part of it was Phoenix, who played well and played emotional for this crowd, who was very loud and was the X-factor tonight. We got open looks, we just couldn't make them. We just couldn't get the ball to go down. With 8.2 seconds on the clock, we misplayed the ball and it almost went out of bounds, but we still got a great shot off. It just didn't go down. It was typical of our night. We got 65 shots, we didn't get to the free throw line like we usually do. We usually go a lot and we didn't tonight, that always hurts us.

Q: Was Tina Thompson's ankle bothering her?
Chancellor: No, Phoenix did a great job defending her and they did a great job again tonight. That's all.

Tina Thompson, Houston Comets

Tina Thompson

Q: Your team had some shooting problems tonight.
Thompson: On offense, we were rushing at first and going too fast -- sometimes being hesitant and that's not characteristic of us. We just didn't shoot the ball well as a team. Cynthia shot the ball well, and she did a great job offensively and defensively. But we are not going to sit here and say, "If Tina did this, if Sheryl (Swoopes) did this, if Kim (Perrot) did this, we would have won the game." We didn't win the game, it's behind us and we are going back to Houston tomorrow.

Q: Can you talk about Jennifer Gillom's play.
Thompson: Hats off to Jennifer. I've always said she is a great player. She's probably one of the better players I have to defend. The positive thing for us is that our defense played well. We go home now in a comfortable situation, playing in the Compaq Center in front of our fans. We are used to shooting and practicing there all the time, so hopefully it will be better for us.

Q: Though you didn't pull this one out, you still have two left.
Thompson: We still have an opportunity. We are not going to be that disappointed in ourselves where we are just going to give up. It's not us, it's not in our nature. We have an opportunity to come back, play two games at home. That's a comfortable situation for us.

Monica Lamb, Houston Comets

Monica Lamb

Q: Was it a poor shooting night, or was Phoenix's defense stifling?
Lamb: It was a little bit of both. They definitely came out very, very aggressive defensively, fighting for everything they have. I also think that offensively we just didn't click tonight. It wasn't the first time we met a team with great defensive pressure, but we just had some shots that didn't go in for us tonight.

Q: Can you talk about Jennifer Gillom's performance tonight.
Lamb: She is a great center and great post player in the WNBA. When you get on the court against a player like her, you have to raise the stakes. You really have to raise your level of play and raise all expectations a little higher. She had a great game, but we just didn't get it done on offense tonight.

Q: How do you approach Game 2?
Lamb: We have to go home, take this loss, and learn what we can from it. Go home, work hard, and be ready for them on Saturday. There is inherent pressure on that alone, so we are not putting any added pressure on ourselves. We know what we have to do and we are more than capable of doing what we have to do. We just have to go out and execute on Saturday.

Cynthia Cooper, Houston Comets

Cynthia Cooper

Cooper: I can't talk about what the Mercury did, but I can say that we definitely didn't shoot well as a team. We did not play like we are capable of playing and because of that we lost the game. You can't pretend to win a game scoring 51 points. We have to go back to the drawing board and make some adjustments. We're going to be playing in front of our fans as opposed to their fans. I think we played excellent defense on a positive note. We held them to 54 points. What we have to do now is make the necessary adjustments on offense to not score 51 points next time.

Sheryl Swoopes, Houston Comets

Sheryl Swoopes

Swoopes: For me personally, I didn't see anything that they were doing differently. I think we all had really good looks at the basket. I know I did. For some reason, I just couldn't throw it in the ocean tonight. That's going to happen. As Cynthia said, I think we did a really good job defensively. But, now we have to go back home. I don't think there is anything wrong with our offense, I just think it was one of those nights when we just couldn't get any shots to go in. We just need to stay together as a team and go home and make it a different story on Saturday.

Q: What happened with the last shot you took of the game?
Swoopes: It think the shot that I took was like 2.3 or 2.5 seconds to go. It kind of did the same thing it did all night -- it came in and went back out. Then, we still had another opportunity to score. It was one of those things. After we got the ball back, Coach told us to not give up and that we had another opportunity. Unfortunately, it didn't go in tonight.