WNBA Chicago Sky

Chicago Sky Vs. Connecticut Sun Post Game Notes and Quotes

Published on June 2, 2008 under Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
Chicago Sky News Release


* Attendance at tonight's game: 2,276

* For the second straight time out, the Sky lost a home game that went down to the wire. Guard Jia Perkins had a chance to tie it with a fade away jumper on the baseline, but the shot sailed long as time expired and the Sky dropped to 1-3 on the season. The Connecticut Sun improved to 5-1 and moved into a tie with the Detroit Shock atop the Eastern Conference standings.

* The Sky is now 1-7 against Connecticut all time, 0-4 at home. * Today's game featured the two most durable players of the 1999 WNBA draft class in the Sky's Chasity Melvin and the Sun's Tamika Whitmore. The duo is 1-2 in games played from that class with Whitmore holding a slight edge at 297 to Melvin's 294.

* The Sun was once again without guard Kamesha Hairston who is recovering from a torn lateral meniscus. Hairston, the 12th overall pick in the 2007 WNBA Draft, was a college teammate of Sky star Candice Dupree at Temple University, where the two were coached by former WNBA star Dawn Staley.

* Before the game Sky Head Coach Steven Key and Sun Head Coach Mike Thibault, also an assistant coach for the US Women's Olympic Basketball Team, presented Sylvia Fowles with the #13 USA basketball jersey she will wear this summer in Beijing. Fowles was named to the team on Saturday, May 31.

KEY STATS OF THE NIGHT

* The Sky outshot the Sun, 43.1% (31-72) to 37.9% (25-66), and out-rebounded them, 43 to 34. The Sky had 19 second-chance points to the Sun's 13, and 40 points in the paint to the Sun's 24. The differences? o The Sun's 9-23 three-pointers (.391) to the Sky's 3-9 (.333) o The Sun's free throw shooting - they were 16-20 from the charity stripe (.800), while the Sky struggled, making only 8 of 15 for 53.3%. Before this game, the Sky was shooting 72.3%.

KEY RUN OF THE NIGHT

* The key run of the night was actually the key drought of the night. After pulling within three at the end of the third quarter, the Sky could not pull any closer, nor could the Sun add any cushion, due to more than a four-minute stretch to start the third quarter where neither team could make a basket. Lindsay Whalen of the Sun finally made a lay up with 5:52 remaining to end the scoreless streak and stretch the Sun lead to 63-58.

SKY-LIGHTS

* Rookie Sylvia Fowles earned her second double-double in four games, with a season-high 17 points and a season-high 12 rebounds, 5 of which came on the offensive end. She had no blocked shots in the game, ending her 3-game streak of 4 blocked shots per game. * Candice Dupree earned her 10th career double-double, her first of the 2008 season. She finished with 14 points and a season-high 11 rebounds, including 4 on the offensive end. * Guard Cathy Joens came off the bench to contribute 24 valuable minutes and score a season-high 13 points on 5-6 shooting, 3-4 from long range. She also grabbed a career-high eight rebounds. * Jia Perkins scored a season-high 21 points on 9-19 shooting. She dished out four assists, one short of her season high against Seattle. Her 21 points tied her career high vs. Connecticut. * Armintie Price scored only 1 point, on a made free throw, and was 0-7 from the field. She grabbed 4 rebounds. * Since fouling out in 15 minutes in the season opener, Fowles has only had 2 fouls in 88 minutes played.

SUN NOTES

* Veteran forward Tamika Whitmore loves to play the Chicago Sky. After scoring her 2007 season high of 26 points against the Sky, Whitmore finished today's game with 19 points on 7-15 shooting and hit three from behind the arc. * The Sky held Asjha Jones to 9 points tonight. Last season, she averaged 20.75 points in four games against the Sky, including 31 in the overtime game on 5/31/07. * Two days after becoming only the fourth player in franchise history with 1,500 career points, Lindsay Whalen did it all for the Sun today. She scored 19 points, grabbed seven rebounds and tallied seven assists. * Barbara Turner gave her team a boost off the bench with her energy and scoring. The super sub had 13 points, 11 of them in the third quarter. She hit on three of her five three-point attempts.

NEXT PRACTICE: Monday, June 2, 10-12 at Attack Athletics.

NEXT GAME: The Sky welcomes #1 draft pick Candace Parker and the Los Angeles Sparks to the UIC Pavilion on Tuesday, June 3. Tip-off is 7 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on WWME Channel 23 and WVON 1690AM.

SKY QUOTES

Head Coach Steven Key

On the loss:

"The difference from last Thursday night is that we played with a lot of energy. But we still had poor shooting. Any time you have starters going 1 for 8 and 0 for 7, you're going to have trouble scoring enough points to win in this league."

On Sylvia Fowles' defense of Tamika Whitmore:

"They knew they couldn't beat her in the paint, so they drew her out. Sylvia's going to have to learn how to defend outside the paint. She is going to have to do it. She knows how to do it. She is capable of doing it, but it is going to be a learning curve that will have to shorten very quickly because players in this league, if they can't contend when they are under the basket, they are going to draw away from it. So she is going to have to learn to play. Whether we do it now or whether we do it later, she has to learn."

Regarding adding three-point shooters to the team:

"I think we have enough three-point shooters on the team, we just need to get somebody to knock down the shots. They can shoot. I'll take Dominique Canty. I'll take Jia Perkins. And I'll take Armintie Price getting free-throw line jump shots. They just have to make them. I am not going to go out and find some super shooter. Cathy Joens is a great shooter for us. he spreads the floor. We have great opportunities. But the in-between, middle distance is the shot we need to hit. Not necessarily the three. We're getting wide open shots; they just have to go in."

Regarding finding encouragement in two tough losses:

"Everybody keeps talking about all those other teams who are young. We are also young. We have a lot of talent. The team still needs to mature, it needs to gel. And the players need to learn how to work with each other and with me, which is a process in itself. Meanwhile we're playing games, so we're really close, but obviously we felt the last two games we should have won. If anything, we are going to get a lot of positive out of it because we are learning. You learn by losing, so unfortunately for us, we are going to have to take a couple losses. Hopefully not too many in a row."

#34 Sylvia Fowles

On being consistent with aggressiveness:

"I feed off my coaches and my teammates' energy. They get me going. I want to go out there and help them to the best of my ability. Every time I hear them talking or I look at the bench it gives me more energy."

On the future:

"I'm just looking forward to starting to win games and having our fans enjoy themselves through the process and getting more people in the stands."

On the Sky's shooting woes:

"I don't really know what's going on. Our girls get in and shoot before and after practice but it just hasn't been consistent. But we'll get better."

On how to close out close games:

"We need to knock down shots. Jia had a good look at the end to tie the game, but we just have to be confident and knock down out shots."

On rebounding:

"Rebounding has always been a part of my game. My coaches always stressed that when I'm tired I need to make sure I get in there and help rebounding. Tonight I had to lock in mentally and make sure I got in to rebound in crunch time."

#11 Jia Perkins

On tonight's final shot:

"I just shot it. I really didn't think whether the shot was going to go in or not, but unfortunately I didn't make it. I know we have more games and we will just try to get a win next time."

The difference between Thursday's loss and tonight's:

"I think we played a lot better tonight, we got some loose balls, but it was still a loss. We have to keep getting better and not put ourselves in these situations. We need to jump out and get a lead that will make it easier on us. We have to learn to work on it at practice and just keep playing to get better."

On the third quarter:

"I think third quarter is very important, it can either kill you or help. You try to jump out in this quarter and play it like you are playing the beginning of the game. We want to come out and jump on it, and go to our strengths. We know Sylvia is a beast, I think we need to give her the ball more and let her go to work. We went on the run during the quarter, but we also have to learn how to stop the other team from scoring."

On back to back losses:

"We are going to stay up regardless. It doesn't matter how many points we lose by, it still hurts. We keep our heads up and keep getting better in practice and eventually we will work through this, and eventually get a win."

SUN QUOTES

Head Coach Mike Thibault

On what a 5-1 record does for the team's confidence:

"(Laughs) I don't know because we were hanging on for our dear life at the end. Just the fact that we are so new and young with 8 or 9 new players and that we are winning despite some deficiencies at the moment -- I guess we will take it, but I was disappointed in our rebounding tonight. But we somehow got through it. We didn't have a great second half scoring wise, but somehow we were persistent and got to the free throw line in the second half and we were aggressive attacking the basket and that probably paid off more than anything."

On what do he stresses for road games:

"I just say we shouldn't play any differently than we do at home. And maybe even be more aggressive on the road early in games to try and put the home team on their heels a little bit and take the crowd out of it. And I thought we were matching them basket for basket, so they never got a feel of being able to pull away from us in the first quarter. Our biggest thing is just be really aggressive on both ends."

On how well Lindsay (Whalen) is playing both sides of the ball:

"She has been terrific. I mean she is making shots, she is getting to the rim. Her defense over the last two years has improved tremendously, so she has become probably in the upper third of the defensive point guards in the league, which is a huge step."

#00 Tamika Whitmore

On guarding rookie Sylvia Fowles:

"It is like guarding anybody else. We are in the pros now. And you can't get credit until you earn it."

On scoring 19 points against Fowles:

"Well, she's 6-6, and I'm 6-2 or 6-1 and a half, but 6-2 is stretching it. But I mean I can shoot and she didn't put her hand up on defense, so I was just shooting."

On the Sky's young and fast style of play:

"We knew they were a transition, running team and we just really worked on getting back in transition defense. They rebounded the ball hard and they really did a great job of offensive rebounding tonight. But we are just a team with our core that has been here for so long that we know how to dig it out and get a win. And I think that is what we did tonight."

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