April 8, 2006
Kara Lawson, Sacramento Monarchs
On tonight's game:
"One of the things that coach Donovan keeps telling us is that everybody wants to beat us and everybody's out to get us because we're the No. 1 team in the world. With Australia, I think everybody was excited for the challenge because they're No. 2 the last few times. With us having a lot of younger players who haven't had as much experience against them, it was good for us to come out, take it serious and get the win."
With so many fouls called during the game, was it hard to get into a rhythm?
"No, I don't think it was too hard to get into the flow. By fouling it took us out of a lot of things that we excel in. We weren't able to get as many transition opportunities that we would have hoped for. We weren't able to get our defense going and turn out some turnovers. I think it hurts our overall team flow, yes, but as individuals it's not too hard to get into the flow. We just have to get better defensively."
What came together in the final 15 minutes that allowed you to pull away from Australia?
"I think it was a combination of things. There were stretches where we had stops defensively, where we didn't foul. Then on the offensive end, I think we're getting smarter where we understand who we need to go to in certain situations in order to be really successful. When you have a player like Tina (Thompson), when she's one-on-one in the block you can get it to her and she can operate from down there. With Katie (Smith), you can get her off screens and get her good looks. Once we learn how to find each other and where everyone can be successful, offensively we're going to be really, really tough to stop. I think that's what happened. We settled down and said, `okay, let's go to our veterans, let's get them going.' And they carried us through the second half."
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