Fever take game two in East semifinals series vs. New York

The Indiana Fever defeated the New York Liberty 75-67 Sunday night in Indianapolis evening the best-of-three series at 1-1. Tamika Catchings led the Fever with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Game 3 is Wednesday in New York.

Notes and Quotes

• Indiana ended a three-game losing streak against the Liberty that is New York’s longest vs. the Fever since it won each of the first six games the two played in 2000 and 2001.
• With team-highs of 17 points and 13 rebounds, Tamika Catchings registered the 14th double-double of her postseason career. Jessica Davenport added eight rebounds off the bench, her most ever in a playoff game.
• The Fever’s 41 rebounds tonight are the third most ever in team postseason-history.
  Janel McCarville led the Liberty with 11 rebounds, her postseason career-high.
• New York’s eight points in the first period are the fewest ever scored against the Fever in the first period of a playoff game, and they matched the fewest scored against Indiana in any postseason quarter.
• Cappie Pondexter’s 22 field goal attempts tied the most ever in a playoff game by an opposing player against the Fever, a record she and Diana Taurasi tied in last season’s WNBA Finals.  Ashja Jones set the record for Connecticut in 2007.

Lin Dun

Thanks to our fans.  They were loud and strong and gave us energy.  We did a good job of defending the threes.  We did a much better job on the boards.  We did not give up those second chance points.  Now we get to go back to New York for World War III.  We wanted to get off to a good offensive and defensive start.  We did much better developing the low post game with Tammy Sutton-Brown.  Tonight we played 40 minutes of good basketball.  It does not surprise me that we are going three games.

Fever’s Katie Douglas

At different times different players step up. That’s what the playoffs are all about.  Everybody knows each other so well.  I’m not sure how many times we’ve played them, but it feels like 15 times.  So everybody knows each other’s plays.  It’s about execution.  I think we did a good job for the majority of the game.  Finding the people that were hot and getting the ball where it needed to go.

On having Finals experience:

Hopefully, it helps a bunch. But, they have some WNBA champions on their team as well.  Hopefully, we understand what is at stake. There is no tomorrow guaranteed.  I know that the veterans, the starting five that were there played in a big game on a big stage.  So hopefully, we can use that experience and come out with an aggressiveness and but also a calmness about us.  You know there needs to be a sense of urgency, but not a sense of panic.

Liberty head coach Anne Donovan

The fourth quarter was positive for us.  The first three quarters were not.  They disrupted us.  We only had seven assists and that’s low.

The Eastern conference has been competitive since day one.  It’s possession by possession.  Both teams like to play defense.

We could not put the ball in the hole.  We had poor offense.