Mike Thibault Quotations

She still has a huge upside to her game, and we have made a commitment to that potential.

She had already played in the league a couple years before I coached her, so she had already proven that she was worthy of being in the league. And she's been to the Final Four twice. She knows how to win.

She can post up and shoot the three, she's a good passer, maybe a little bit more aggressive offensively than Brooke was sometimes, defensively. She's a smart defensive player, but I don't think she has the foot speed that Brooke did.

Now we're 0-0 and everybody goes and plays. The playoffs are what you wait all season for.

I guess I'm not much of a prognosticator, because I thought we would play our best game of the series today, and we played our worst. They're disruptive (defensively), but by this point in the series, we should be able to better handle it.

I guess I'm not a very good prognosticator, because I thought we would play our best game of the series (Sunday) and we played our worst,

From that standpoint, it kind of makes for a very competitive training camp.

I don't think it means much because we took three out of four from them the year before. The two teams through the course of the last two years are usually separated by a couple of baskets each game. It comes down to who executes.

We're obviously excited to get that done. She's been a huge part of what we've done. That's a major step for us to get our pieces put together to keep the core of the team.

It is a great experience. The two teams I coached on the men's side were some of the most exciting moments in my coaching life. Obviously winning NBA Championships and CBA Championships and being in the WNBA Finals are all highlights. But playing and coaching for your country in a gold medal game is pretty intense.

I think the maturity of going through last hear helps us. We need to come out and get ready to go right away. We've been through it now two years in a row. This is our goal when we started out and now we're here to go about it.

I thought we'd play our best game (Sunday) - instead we played our worst. (Afterward in the locker room), I just wrote the stats on the board and let them stare at them awhile.

It had nothing to do with the last shot, it was what he said. They won the game, but instead of being gracious, he had to make a smart-(expletive) comment. They beat us fair and square, no need to rub it in.

It had to be fun to sit in the stands and watch, because you had such an ebb and flow to the game.

It drives coaches crazy because there's no predicting that stuff, ... That's why I have no hair. ... This is a nice win, but it's one win.

I subbed early to keep everybody fresh and we got our legs back and played with a little more bounce. About a week ago we looked tired, but tonight we had energy the whole time. I was very happy with how we played. It was fun to watch.

Jim's NBA career was all about determination. No one studied the game more. He had notebooks on every single player he ever faced. I bet he still has them.

My biggest relief was when I found out it wasn't a torn ligament. Not that the other injury is better, but a ligament injury is a long injury. I was a little bit afraid that we were in that realm.

Well, we go to the gym tomorrow, ... we get a little stretch and get a little shooting in and we'll try not to turn it over by ourselves. Then we're just getting ready for Tuesday's game.

We were sitting in the Seattle locker room after we lost, ... and we knew that with two more wins, we would have had the game on our court. I think it was an eye-opener. They had been content just to be OK but it was clear to them how important the home court was. They found out what it meant during the finals.

We have a very persistent team here, but we didn't make shots when we needed to. We missed too many easy shots. I don't think we got any breaks, but we also didn't make our shots.

We have a very persistent persevering team here, but we didn't make shots when we needed to tonight. They have what we wanted. And it's hard to take.

When you shoot as bad as we did, you don't give yourself a chance to win. We had one starter in double figures. Without (Ann) Wauters, they played a lot differently. They played all small people out on the perimeter.

We're excited to finally have Erin with us. I think she is one of the best young point guards in the world. This signing will give us the opportunity to play both her and Lindsay together. While young, I expect she will have a learning adjustment period, but I expect her to be able to adjust at a fairly rapid pace.

We had a bad offensive game. We had a lot of good open looks and we didn't make them. We had really good open shots and it's normally the strength of our team, but when you combine Katie Douglas, Nykesha Sales, and Lindsay Whalen shooting 5-for-30 between the three of them, it's hard to win. When you get that many open shots and don't make them, you are probably not going to win.

The playoffs are fun. That's what you play for as a player and as a coach, and what the fans wait all season for. So the fun begins.

When we went down there that, as a U.S. basketball player, you're kind of like a rock star off the court, but the minute you step on the court you are the most hated opponent that there is. Everybody measures their progress in international basketball by how they do against the U.S. That's a constant pressure every time you step onto the court.

We were on target to do what we needed to do. It's just when you end up with Sacramento shooting 67 field goal attempts and we shot 56. ... Basketball becomes very black and white to me sometimes. ... Turning the ball over was the way we lost the game.

We just had a toast to doing what we did, ... When we made the playoffs, we didn't make a big deal about it, but winning the Eastern Conference with a couple weeks to go is a great accomplishment.

We had some advantages we refused to take advantage of. I just don't think we played very smart. The emotional difference was just being mad at how we were playing.

The second half we rebounded better, took care of the ball better. Taj and Nykesha came up with huge plays down the stretch.

So that's it, as simple as I can put it.

People forget that it took the NBA over 20 years to reach this (point),

The most impressive part is that she played 25 minutes without a turnover. She struggled a little bit with here shooting. She did a lot of other good things.

Once we made that first run, they weren't able to match it.

That's why it's a five-game series. I was encouraged by how we bounced back in the second half and got it back to a game.

That?s why you keep three point guards on most teams, so if you have this situation you?re not in real trouble. We?re prepared for these kinds of things. We didn?t prepare for it to be in the first game of the Finals. But it happens, so we?ll just try to deal with it and hope something good happens.

They only scored 24 points from their halfcourt offense (Sunday). It's that simple. Their initial offense didn't do much. Getting a second shot, turning us over, that's a lot of points. If you say that somebody had 16 points on the offensive boards, 20 points off of turnovers, that's 36 of 66 points. Six points are when we fouled at the end of the game. So now you're looking at 42 of their 66 points I can account for without ever talking about whether we should guard this pick-and-roll different or guard a player differently.

This is what we've played for all year. We've taken care of details. We've been more focused on a daily basis about the little things and it's paid off.

They're disruptive (defensively), but by this point in the series, we should be able to better handle it.

They're disruptive, ... but by this point in the series we should be able to better handle it. I think that at least 60 percent of our turnovers (Sunday night) were us. You can't have the kind of errors we had.

It wasn't unexpected. We had to kind of wait it out a little bit. I wasn't nervous. She had some things to get settled, national team-wise.

It was a very rugged basketball game for long stretches. Bodies flying everywhere ... a lot of fouls ... but we kept our poise at the end. We played good enough defensively at the end of the game to win.

It's a huge road win, guarantees a winning road record for us. Every time you win a road game at this point in the season, it puts pressure on the teams trying to catch you to do the same.

It's a great win, when you go on the road and win your first playoff game and play pretty well like we did. That was as good a first half as you could play to open a playoff series and then we lost our composure in the second half and got it back and I just thought we played terrific.

That's one of the things, ... you don't have a lot of time. You've got to come watch the film in the morning and see the things that are there you can correct. It's not going to come by going out and practicing. It's going to come by mostly mental adjustments, more than anything, to understand what's available and what's not.

It was pretty even most of the way, ... but the difference for me is obvious: turnovers. We had control of the game for a while and we gave it back.

The fact that we were in the finals two years in a row is a great thing, ... We put ourselves in a tough position in this series losing Game 1 (69-65 at Mohegan Sun on Sept. 14). I think we're every bit as talented as Sacramento. But they made their breaks for themselves tonight. ... We have been here twice and now we have to figure out a way to get over the hump.

The fact that we're in the Finals two years in a row is a great thing, ... We put ourselves in a tough position in this series losing Game 1. I think we're every bit as talented as Sacramento. But they made their breaks for themselves tonight.

I'm proud of our two point guards for stepping up. Jen and Jamie did a terrific job of pushing the ball of the floor and they did a great job defensively. We had a lot of people step up and make some shots.

I'm proud of our two point guards for stepping up. Jen and Jamie did a great job tonight pushing the ball up the floor and did a great job defensively.

I like the finals format but I don't like the first two rounds. It's never going to be perfect until we get a best-of-five of the first round and get to play our first game at home. Historically, other than a few upsets over the years, the better teams have still won. But it's not a great scenario to go on the road your first playoff game.

I'm more impressed with some of the defensive plays we made, steals, tips in the lane, rebounds in traffic. I thought they all stepped up and did that.

If she can play, she'll start, ... The swelling is down and she can't be any more injured, so we'll see.

In the morning, I didn't think it was that bad, but the swelling never went down. It's not a high ankle sprain, and hopefully she can play on Sunday.

It has no bearing on this game. They're a team trying to get into the playoffs; we're a team trying to get home court in the playoffs.

I don't know if you can duplicate the record that we had last year, but I think we're already a better team because of our experience. Our young players will make our bench better. The ones that were here already know what they have to do. The ones that we brought in that new are pretty skilled players.

I didn't think it was that bad but the swelling never went down. Her knee was fine, but her ankle, she tripped (Wednesday) early in the second half trying to get over a pick-and-roll and it swelled up a little bit after the game. Then today, it was worse. We'll keep getting treatment. It's not a high ankle sprain so hopefully by Sunday, she can play.

The University of Houston has made an excellent choice by hiring Ron Hughey as its new women's basketball coach. Coach Hughey will bring an expertise and energy level to the program that will excite fans and put Houston Women's Basketball back on the map. Having watched him coach up close, I know his players will improve immensely and love learning from him. I look forward to following Houston Basketball in the years to come.

The experience she gained should be invaluable to her continued growth and contribution to our team. In reality, compared to American players, she would just be finishing her college career.

The reality is that the NBA was in worse shape in the '70s and early '80s. People have convenient memories.

The two things that stand out when you face Indiana: No. 1, you better not turn the ball over and, No. 2, you better hold them to even on the boards like we had to do with Detroit.

The hardest thing sometimes is when you're in a situation like that and you don't win in regulation, the tendency is to come out unhappy or flat to start the overtime. Instead we kind of cranked it up to start the overtime.