Archive for September, 2008
Silver Stars West Conference Finals Trophy Ceremony
Silver Stars are awarded the Western Conference Finals Trophy, Dan Hughes and Becky Hammon speak.
Hammon leads Silver Stars into WNBA finals
SAN ANTONIO (TICKER) —Becky Hammon came to the rescue and helped send the San Antonio Silver Stars to their first WNBA Finals in franchise history.
Hammon scored 35 points and nailed four crucial free throws down the stretch as the Silver Stars held on for a 76-72 victory over the Los Angeles Sparks in Game Three of the Western Conference finals.
The hero in Game One, Sophia Young scored 18 points for the Silver Stars, who erased a five-point lead with 1:57 left.
Just 54 seconds later, Hammon nailed a 3-pointer to tie the game. After an offensive foul by Delisha Milton-Jones on the ensuing possession, Hammon made a pair of free throws on each of the next two possessions to seal the game.
It was the second straight stellar late-game performance for San Antonio, which posted a 67-66 victory in Game Two when Young nailed a desperation turnaround jumper at the buzzer.
The Silver Stars’ opponent in the WNBA Finals will be determined Monday when the Detroit Shock and New York Liberty play the decisive Game Three of their Eastern Conference finals series. The Shock posted a 64-55 victory over the Liberty in Sunday’s Game Two.
The best-of-five championship series will begin Wednesday in San Antonio.
Milton-Jones and Candace Parker scored 16 points for Los Angeles.
Sophia Young’s Post Game Blog
Source: WNBA.com
An Amazing Win, But Another Game Today
Wow. I don’t even know where to start.
The play was originally set up for me to run to the baseline and get the ball and throw up a shot. It may not have looked like it, but the play we called was kinda like it happened. I didn’t get to the baseline, but I came out from the baseline to the top of the key, got the ball and threw it up toward the backboard. I don’t know if I “called it,” but I definitely tried to bank it. Then as I fell to the floor, I saw it bounce off the backboard, off the rim and then off the backboard again before falling through… And… wow… I did flip on the ground and started screaming at the top of my lungs. It was mayhem. I don’t even know what happened, but the feeling was unbelievable.
And it took a while to sink in. We eventually got back in the locker room, and I was like, “Wait, did we just win that game?”
I know hindsight is 20/20, but I actually thought it had a shot at going in. It was kind of ugly looking because of L.A.’s good defense… and it was all I could do to fire it in on a line towards the backboard. But I said a prayer when we came out of the timeout… and whatever it was, it seemed to work for us.
The bucket from DeLisha Milton-Jones with just over a second left was my fault. Becky played tight D on Temeka Johnson and forced a tough shot, but I didn’t box DeLisha out. I was out of position and she was right there to put it back and put the Sparks up one. And not boxing out was a problem we’d had the entire game. I felt just horrible… to be the one responsible for us going down and to hear that hush overtake our arena. Luckily we had a timeout left to call.
And it’s not like we felt defeated at that point… we did have over a second left to get up a final shot and we wanted to take advantage of it. We just wanted to finish it. We’ve got 1-point-whatever seconds left to go and let’s just see what happens. And I still can’t believe it went in.
Afterwards, it was pandemonium. But mixed with that was the realization that we’d have to play again tomorrow. OK, we won this exciting game, but the fact of the matter is that now to complete the comeback, we have to come out today and play our style of basketball and get another win.
First and foremost, we need to rebound the ball better. I don’t think we did a very good job of that. We also need to improve on transition defense.
The fact that we won Game 2 was pretty much amazing. And emotional. But today’s a new day and we have to do it again. And we’re all gonna do what’s necessary to come off of yesterday’s high and be ready to play.
