Team intros at the first game of the Tulsa Shock 2010 season.
The Shock dropped their Tulsa debut, falling 80-74 to the Minnesota Lynx on Saturday night. The Lynx had five players in double figures, led by 21 points and a team high seven rebounds from Charde Houston.
The Shock ended the night with four in double digits (Amber Holt, Plenette Pierson, Shanna Crossley and Natasha Lacy) and a near double-double from Chante Black (8 points, 10 rebounds).
The obvious sore spot for the home team is the lack of scoring and not capitalizing on opportunities during the evening. Tulsa battled back from a 16 point first half deficit to tie the game at 36 just before halftime. The second half went solidly in the Lynx's favor, who nabbed an eight point lead after three quarters and maintained that lead throughout the 4th to get the win.
Post-game quotes -
Head coach Nolan Richardson:
On the eventual loss after the comeback - "I was very proud of the young ladies - of their effort. They played extremely hard and that the demonstration of being down 16 in the first half and coming back. As I told them, you're never out of a ballgame when you play the kind of basketball that you're capable of playing."
On the slow start -"There's no question that was the most nervous bunch of ladies I've ever seen. They were airballing layups. When you airball layups, there's got to be something wrong."
On Natasha Lacy - "She gave everything she had and I thought maybe if we brought her back at the end she would be able to give more. I didn't want her to go out to start off with because she's been so good coming off the bench. You know, again that could change because Lacy, who tried to play on Detroit's team for the last two or three years, drafted by them, never had the opportunity. Again I thought she played her heart out. She made some great things happen and that's good because you can take a player like her and know that she's going to be in that top 7 or 8 rotation every time."
On the Shock shooting - We shot horrible. Absolutely horrible. We don't have - that's why we have to play so hard on the defensive end because from the team that we've got there's no real pure shooter, with the exception of Crossley. She's more of a pure type shooter. The other ladies are more scorers - if they're not getting to the basket or getting to the free throw line, picking up a garbage or a fast break, they're not as potent."
On the turnovers - That's the part that bugs me the most I think it's because when you're small and you're working on possessions you must control possessions because you're gonna probably get beat on the boards. But when you're turning the ball over as much as we did tonight and in the first game it was 22, that's way entirely too many turnovers. But I can understand why they're happening. FIrst of all, they're trying to play a speed they're not used to so you've got to get used to learning how to play at a speed while making correct decisions with the ball. I think that can change . . . I thought we had 40 turnovers. It looked like it was 40 to me. You said 22? I might sleep tonight. Wow.
On the loss -When you have fear that something's happening, you revert back to what you used to do and I saw that tonight. I saw a lot of that tonight. I saw a revert back to trying to do things that we don't - I had no idea we could do those kind of things because that's not what we work on. But it takes time working together to get them on the same page."
Natasha Lacy:
12 points, five rebounds and five assists in 25 minutes
On the game -"You know, it's our second game. First game together as 11, second game together as a team. I just think we just got to buy into his system, learn a lot, we're playing at a pace we're not used to. Turnovers are killing us, we're missing the cheap shots like freethrows and layups -myself included - but I just think we have to not expect the contact or the foul, just go up strong."
On the slow start - I thought it was nervous. I thought it was nervous energy. Oh my gosh - a great atmosphere out there. Any time you can play in front of fans like that and just with the whole arena being yellowed out I just think it was nervous energy."
Shanna Crossley:
13 points on 5-of-14 shooting in 27 minutes
On the game - "It was a game of ups and downs, not very consistent on our part. It was a good little gauge to see where we're at against a solid team, to see that we're definitely not there. We have a lot of room for improvement and we've got to play just as smart as we do hard and I think there's a lot of things that we're going to learn from this game."
On her performance -"It comes and goes, depending on looks and my shot selection, which wasn't the greatest at times. The style of play is so much more quick that it takes me consiously trying to slow down to make sure that I get everything - feet set, shot up in my own time and rhythm rather than being sped up. I need to solidify that a little bit more."
On her role - "It's not a burden, that's the style of player that I am and that's the role I have to fulfill and that's why they brought me here. I'll just do what I do but I need to make sure that I'm ready, where I need to be and produce a little bit more steady than what I have been. It's gonna come."