2012 WNBA Finals: Indiana Fever excited and optimistic about game three

After two hard-fought games in the WNBA Finals leaving the series tied at 1-1, the Minnesota Lynx travel to hostile quarters to face the Indiana Fever on Friday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for game three in the best-of-five series.

Fever head coach Lin Dunn, undaunted by losing game two, indicated that her team will improve their rebounding and limit turnovers in game three.

“We’re excited about where we are – anytime you can come home and be 1-1, you’re optimistic, and we are,” said Dunn. “We know some things we can do better. Throw away the physicality of the game, we just have to get a few more rebounds and not turn the ball over so much. We gave them too many offensive rebounds and we gave them too many points off turnovers. Take away three or four turnovers and take away three or four offensive rebounds and we could’ve won that game.”

Fever forward Tamika Catchings also expressed satisfaction with the team’s current position.

“From a team standpoint, we’re happy where we’re standing right now,” said Catchings. “We went up there, we knew we needed to get one on their court.”

With multiple players injured, Dunn philosophized about the ups and downs of the game and how to address unforeseen circumstances.

“You’re going to be thrown some curves,” said Dunn, “and you’re going to be thrown some adversity, and you figure out a way to deal with it. We’ve done that as a team all year long – we dealt with both (Briann January) and (Shavonte) Zellous being out with concussions, we had Erin (Phillips) out with her Olympic training situation. Katie (Douglas) had a couple days there where she was sick. You just have to deal with the hand that you’re dealt, which this team is really good at.”

Catchings concurred and expressed confidence about game three.

“You think about the game last night, the ups and downs throughout the game and the things we need to do to get better, and we’ll focus on that tomorrow, and I’ll be ready for tomorrow night.”

Nevertheless, handling a deep Lynx squad is still an uphill climb.

“The thing that is challenging for us in particular in this series is that they are so deep and they’re able to play, nine, 10, 11 quality players,” said Dunn. “I think they’ve only got one player on their team that isn’t an All-American. Their depth is really a challenge for us now that we’re down to so few numbers.”