Becky Hammon, Kelsey Plum, and Jackie Young | Aces LOSE to Lynx | August 21, 2024

Kelsey Tough Top loss uh tonight can you talk about the mental grind that your team needs to prepare for for this second half of the [Music] Season yeah I think there's a point in every season where it's definitely becomes mental more than anything um obviously you know people have had a month off um and you know six of us haven't uh so that's definitely a situation but it's not an excuse get credit to them they shut 60% from the field and um yeah it's tough feels it it felt nasty tonight um it's so interesting to me like just I'm probably gonna get fin but at this point it's hard because it's just I don't feel it's consistent I don't feel it's consistent the way that they call the games I don't feel it's consistent and you know what they made a pay so doesn't really matter at the end of the day um they were better than us tonight and when I say consistent I'm talking about the officiating just a little bit just that's fine okay yeah you talk about some of the specific challenges you guys fac from a defensive standpoint against this team tonight obviously you know with the you know back door cuts down on the Baseline and some of the options the ways they were able to score offensively just uh some of your thoughts as far as uh what what they really presented to you from a defensive standpoint yeah they moved the ball extremely well first in the league in assist per game um I mean they had 28 tonight they average like 24 25 um they kind of got whatever they wanted um and it's tough too because it's like okay like you're trying to play physical but when I say like defici doesn't let you do that it it puts you in a tough predicament because now you're letting them go freedom of movement and I mean they've shown all year that they're the best in Freedom of movement you know what I'm saying so it's it's tough but listen at the end of the day like we have to adjust we have to adapt um and you know like I said they pay on everything threes in the paint transition um we don't really take away anything that they do uh well so um yeah I mean fortunately you know we we get another opportunity to play them again um so we have to do some major adjustments yeah just by the way the game was going early on I know they scored 26 in the first quarter you made score 25 could you tell but just by the full of the game that it was going to be one of those where you needed to score a lot of points in order to beat them tonight well I think coach is always talking about like defensively uh holding people under a certain amount in uh like quarter by quarter you know so you know we didn't do that and um you know I was frustrated with myself just um you know I don't think I was physical enough early and kind of they got into a rhythm um and then of course you know as a team just because you know maybe they hit a couple we have to stay disciplined to the scheme of what we're doing because over the course of the you know so I think a lot of times you might have gotten away from uh the actual scheme just because you know you're frustrated you know someone makes a shot on you you want to try to adjust but um you know the coaches have schen for a reason so um yeah I mean like I said credit to them they shot 60% I mean it's really hard to win a game when the other team shoots 60% Kelsey uh one of the top teams in the league you guys play today do you feel any motivation for Friday when you play him again Hi how are you what's your name ju yeah uh yeah I think that um yeah it's Do or Die time so absolutely you just talk about uh the importance of Courtney Williams is to this team how tough it is to defend her I mean she kind of had her way that 15ft jumper how tough is it to to defend her and how special does she add to this Minnesota team it's tough I mean you got give courney a lot of credit like you know throughout her I'm a big Corney Williams fan like I've watched her her entire career and she just been able to really um adapt tremendously to you know whatever system she's in and obviously she's playing the highest level of basketball right now just you know she cooked me tonight there's really not much to say um you know especially to she's coming off mid-range jumpers like you know there's times I I'm going over I'm going under um you know what I'm saying I'm trying to be physical I'm like I I was trying and you know she had it tonight and uh you know there's when you get your ass kicked you got to give the other people credit you good all right thank you um earlier this season when the team was struggling you talked about how they just need to not dig themselves into a hole that they can't get out of when you said that were you talking about playoff standings or morale and how do you feel about your team in relation to that statement now um I mean whole whatever I don't really care where we are if we're in a hole on a top of mountain I don't care you need play some defense so until we do that we might as well be digging a hole someone who can provide a defensive spark we've seen is like a Sydney Coulson or you did kind of Praise Kate Martin for that Sydney Coulson didn't get into the game until late in the third quarter and she she know she knocks to Steel like less than a minute and why not set her in earlier or maybe go deeper in your bench when you saw the defensive effort lacking well I'm not going to call anybody out but some of our big studs were in our guarding tonight so wasn't necessarily you know we live with long Tunes Courtney Williams got hot um it was all the other mistakes um not necessarily by our guards so um this it's too bad cuz we got some good production off at Tiff and AC um you know but and it's it's anytime a team shoots 60% from the Flor basically 60% from three that's just a losing anecdote and um until we get our defensive identity and we like stick to it we're we're going to continue to struggle but we made so many mistakes and it was my big dogs making mistakes it's just it's hard to overcome uh coach it uh see like every time the ball got thrown into Asia about two three or coming at her uh How would how would you try to counteract that uh when you're going to see that you know again coming Friday well I mean what they're I they're just leaving people I mean I think they have a special defense cold blue and they just don't guard people they just go guard Asia so the way you cter that I mean she got rid of it she had six assists tonight she played the right way um at a certain point if you're going to put two or three people on somebody somebody else has like make some shots again though throw up the offense the offense was not the problem it was the defense so I mean what would you score 87 that's enough points to win a basketball game but not when you're giving up a 100 and it was basically right from the go we're helping I mean from the go we're just breaking our own rules constantly it's just undisciplined it's just undisciplined they know what they're supposed to be doing and they have to go out there and execute it's just undisciplined and [Music] um you know so you're trying different lineups all the time [Music] um we we go back and see what we can do better but [Music] um that's not a team you can give open shots to we were unable to close out to the three-point line and then keep them in front that's a no like we could not keep them front they got downhill drive and kick or they set a screen and we wouldn't communicate two people would go one one would slip I mean it was a mess um you know you talked about finding a defensive identity you know still trying to know build that process going through it is it different things uh every night every game that is or is it something consistent that you guys are looking to on the defensive end thought we did a really good job to against la and then completely different now La has completely different personnel and Minnesota has Shooters everywhere so you can't bring as much help and dig and activity that we were against La where it kind of looked smothering at times um this team is completely different you have to be able to guard some one-on-one people um and you have to be able to know what you're living with which we were okay with long off the dribble twos now now Courtney Williams made quite a few of them but it was the other parts it was the 10 assists that was really killer because now she's drawn to now she's getting everybody else involved so not only is she knocking down shots but she's getting wide open ones um for everybody else so those are the ones that really um you know the wide open shots the horse shots those are the ones that drive me crazy Bey obviously we see what the schedule is Right matter of 48 Hours you get a chance at them again to take them on what is the Focus uh in the next 48 hours as far as uh your team understand obviously have a travel day but uh just are there's some aspects that that you can take a look at before you uh face them on Friday yeah of course we're going to take a look at it we're going to take a look at it make our adjustments um see if we can't make some things cleaner um for them uh so there's not so much confusion in between I thought we had a pretty clean game plan going into it but it looked like a mess so uh we'll go back to the drawing board and uh see if we can't clean some things up ARR rest is probably the main thing you can leave Jackie Jackie Kelsey talked about the uh the challenges that you guys face in the back court obviously with Courtney and the way that they're playing from an offensive standpoint just some of your views and your takeaways from tonight's matchup uh particularly for you guys defensively yeah I think um we just have to do a better job of executing the game plan um and not making as many mistakes um I think just being aggressive you know on the defensive EV that we can get going in um transition but yeah the biggest thing is just blocking in and ex the SCH um obviously other players have gotten a break KP kind of talked about that like not having rest is tough is that something that is discussed in the locker room like what is the morale if you could just describe discussions between the team at this point and trying to encourage each other to get through the season uh I mean yeah I mean some of us didn't get rest but I mean for a great reason you know and so uh we just have to try to you know make the most of our time you know getting as much treatment as we can and just trying to you know lock in and be present whenever we're on the court and just fight through whatever um we're feeling you know being a little bit tired jet lag whatever that might be you know so um I mean yeah we're gold medalist so can't really complain about that but um you know we have a whole second half of the season so being able to just lock in and get back to playing Aces basketball and um just kind of trying to put that being tired feeling you know in the back of your head and just going out there and trying to get the job all right thanks