Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham, Steph White speak to media after Indiana Fever top Connecticut Sun

[0:00] make those spots appreciate that um you know you just have to stay ready i think that's kind of [0:04] been my whole career is um you got to control what you can control and that's about being a pro and [0:09] um you can't always control uh when you can be out there who you're going to be out there with [0:13] uh but you got to make it count and so i did that tonight but also shout out to my teammates to give [0:17] me the ball when i was open so it's a good team win go ahead sophie this was your first game back [0:24] here in connecticut after you before your mcl is that something you thought about yeah oh my god i [0:31] was saying my prayers the whole entire day let me tell you that but um no i think that's the beauty [0:36] in sport is uh you know last year it can be kind of scary coming back and um being at a place that [0:42] you know takes you out for the season but i don't think like that i think every day is a new day and [0:47] um i'm not kidding i really did say my prayers i was like it's up to god now so i just went out there [0:50] and did my best hey sophie um when you came to this team you you brought up about toughness [0:57] presence aggressive presence um it seemed like today you you were more you were bringing your [1:04] aggressiveness but at the same time you put the dagger um to shy it seemed like caitlin was more [1:09] than aggressive if you could just speak about um energy where you two fed off each other today because [1:14] it it was pretty much the dagger that once you took me in the corner good i like that i like playing with [1:19] um i like playing thank god um you know i think that c is an aggressor i think ab is an aggressor i [1:26] think kelsey's an aggressor when you have three elite players like that who all can you know dominate [1:31] a game and take over a game um joy it's up to you so when you get the ball you know you can do what you [1:35] do but um i think that you just have to have a feel for the game sometimes the energy is low so you [1:40] have to go out there and kind of be the aggressor and bring the energy up but when they already have [1:45] it you just gotta you know slide right in and and don't let the game fall out or fall drop foolish [1:51] stuff drop the energy and so um when i was out there it's the best place another double digit lead [2:01] you guys blew but what we won come back with the win exactly finish my thought um how do you i guess [2:08] hold both the fact that you know you guys are still searching for that consistency within a game but also the [2:13] you know the pride that you were able to come up with otherwise oh okay sorry not bad i mean [2:22] our largest lead was 11 we still won the game by 10. so uh that's positive i think at times you [2:28] know we let one mistake balloon into two and that's probably the area we need to grow in the [2:32] most like we don't want coach to have to call a timeout because one made shot turns into a turnover [2:37] to an open layup and then we have to use one but i mean we're resilient you know that's the positive [2:42] side we always find a way to respond we executed under the atl and then sophie came in and kind of [2:46] just let us home the rest of the way um and our defense was good down the stretch too getting stops [2:51] and forcing them into tough contested twos and uh boxing out but um you know this league is like [2:57] teams are really good and i said that pre-game like teams aren't just gonna like go away and like [3:01] they're not just gonna fade away but we can also do a better job of like keeping our lead and slowly [3:05] building that and you know coach said in locker room like we had a lot of missed layups tonight and those [3:09] are the little ones that can kind of help us to stay in our lead rather than making it so so much [3:13] more difficult on ourselves but yeah that's kind of all that's maybe your next question you mentioned [3:19] the you felt like there was a drop in intensity when you guys get those big leads did you feel that [3:24] again tonight in the third quarter not as much tonight i think tonight it felt a little bit different [3:28] i felt like we had um some of our missed shots affected us maybe a little bit on the defensive end of [3:33] the floor i don't know that there was necessarily a drop in intensity um i think it was you know you go [3:39] through those moments in in a game and um i felt like we let our miss shots um dictate our defense [3:44] a little bit and and then we found it now it was it wasn't as long a stretch um so we're closing the [3:50] gap there which is which is important you know recognizing it staying positive you know communicating [3:54] with one another i thought their huddles um on the floor were really good coming in and and making [3:59] sure that they're staying locked in and problem solving together um positivity in the huddles you know [4:05] in timeout situations as well and i just think that we're continuing to grow and um we're shortening [4:09] the gap and that's the most important thing yeah can you throw anything defensively that you weren't [4:15] anticipating or is that pretty much what you saw from them in the film um i would say it's pretty much [4:21] what i expected um for the most part like they're aggressive i think their guards are really good [4:26] defenders they're long and they're athletic uh whether it's rivers whether it's the con like i expected [4:31] those two to be on me most of the time um and then honestly just from like film from last year [4:37] i like didn't really know who would read or like trap as much because that was charles more so last [4:42] year it felt like nelson adota was the one that was applying more pressure out of the ball screen so [4:46] um anytime we would kind of could get anybody else in action was kind of our main goal and um [4:51] nelson adota is long and athletic so sometimes it's hard to kind of get around her hip too but [4:55] um nothing i didn't expect and you know they're a good defensive team and you know the con's [5:00] going to try to wear you out she's going to pick up holes she's going to pick on 94 feet so you saw [5:03] abe bring the ball up a lot was trying to initiate a lot of our offense um i thought we could have [5:08] probably taken care of the ball a little bit better specifically me uh and sometimes i thought [5:12] felt like we were running our offense so high up at half court that we weren't really able to get an [5:16] advantage right away and um but overall i would say it's pretty similar to what i expected from the film [5:23] okay yeah caitlin did you just get an explanation for that at the end of the game or just what happened [5:29] uh the technical i didn't need an explanation i deserved it but it was worth it the delay of [5:34] game made no sense it felt like tyler wanted to assert himself into the game that was ridiculous so [5:40] that just not a point in the game he needed to call that i went and got the ball went off my foot [5:44] off the scores table and then he gave us a delay game which is a team technical foul so [5:50] you can ask tyler i don't i don't agree with that game this has been a loaded question but you guys [5:56] last time here in connecticut can i get such a blue blood with women's basketball yeah where do [6:02] you feel like connecticut has the professional team in the future yeah i mean steph can probably [6:09] speak that to the best like she coached here for two years so um i mean obviously this organization [6:16] has great history and great tradition um you know i don't get paid the money to make the decisions on [6:22] where the teams are and where they go and obviously they have a passionate fan base and i'm sure their [6:25] fans would love to have a team and i'm sure it was a business business decision and you know i think [6:31] where the league is going at times it's hard for teams like us to function in this type of environment [6:36] like just from a facility standpoint a security standpoint a hotel standpoint but like i enjoy [6:41] coming here like this is my first this was my first ever wmba game and she beat me and i had a [6:47] crispy cream other than that there's not much on doordash it's really and it's just difficult but [6:54] you know i've had good experiences here but like i said i don't make those decisions and i know this [6:59] organization has a lot of history um but i guess i'll be excited to go to houston i know you can [7:04] speak to it better than me yeah i mean i think that this is an area that deserves a protein um you know [7:11] you think about when the team moved here um from orlando you know the the league was was struggling and [7:18] they moved the team and and they have continued to have great fan support great fan base you know [7:24] i enjoyed my time here incredible people that work in this organization good don't know good donuts [7:30] yeah good um you know and it it's it's heartbreaking you know for the tribe and it's heartbreaking for [7:37] this area but i do think that the new england area and the new england basketball fans um deserve a team [7:42] you want the cream you've been a league player for a long time i look back at who's 16 when you played [7:49] with alia boston yeah all those great players can you just reflect on you know how you got from [7:56] 2016 yeah yeah it's fun like there's just so many players from you know my class or class above me or [8:03] class below me that have been able to make it to the league or have had really successful careers and [8:07] obviously ab is my teammate now but diamond was on the team when i played in my first um usa basketball [8:14] so it's been fun to kind of follow her journey and then obviously i played her a lot when i was at [8:17] when she was at maryland and i was at iowa and um she's always been a very very talented player but [8:23] it's cool to just see how everybody's game develops and you know everybody gets to kind of [8:26] live out their dream in a different way and on a different team but uh definitely super cool to [8:31] see how that unfolds um it seems like maybe there might have been a situation on the sideline at [8:41] one point between musical and it's funny because even after that fact you're a leading scorer on the [8:47] team so and then there's today uh today yeah oh okay she put the dagger but what sideline interaction [8:56] i'm confused is that there's reports that it's um like there's a team there's a division of the team [9:03] oh no we're clearly when you see them yeah we're on three game winning streak we're doing good it's [9:07] for playing that damn right if y'all want to address it i mean clearly the the stats and so they tell [9:12] it all but yeah i think if you guys want to address it please do it i don't know if there are reports [9:17] as it is as much as i think it's speculation i think it's opinions i don't know about reports i don't [9:22] i don't i think you're talking about um i don't think you're talking about journalism and and so [9:27] if we're going to continue to create news from from fans on social media or bots on social media or [9:32] whatever it may be then that's a problem right i think legitimate news sources need to report [9:37] legitimate news oh i like that that's all we got