One of the highlights of the Minnesota Lynx's thrilling 96-94 overtime victory over the Mystics was definitely Renee Montgomery's post game interview.
Two things went right in this interview: first, Montgomery is an engaging personality and second, radio commentator Alan Horton engaged her in a real conversation rather than asking the normally ridiculous post game questions ("What were you thinking when you took that game winning shot?").
I started to take excerpts from it for another post and then just decided to post the whole thing.
Montgomery is now officially a Rethinking Basketball favorite, with her own label in the label cloud and everything. Hopefully this is the first of many fun post-game interviews with Montgomery.
More to come on the actual game and Montgomery later, but for now, enjoy the interview.
Alan Horton, radio commentator: Renee Montgomery puts on the headset, joins us here courtside.
Congratulations, young lady!
Renee Montgomery: Thank you.
AH: Wow, what a game.
RM: Yeah…I’m..I’m still…I can’t believe we…I’m embarrassed right now to stand here.
AH: Why are you embarrassed?
RM: Because…you know you saw that foul…I’m so embarrassed.
AH: Oh the three point-…on the three pointer?
RM: Yeah
AH: Yeah… you guys committed two fouls –
RM: Idiots.
AH: [Laughs]
RM: You can say it…you can’t say it, but I’ll say it: that’s probably the dumbest minute of basketball anybody’s ever seen.
AH: But is that…are those kind of the learning steps you go through as a young team? You guys have not been in a lot of close games -- only the win in Sacramento. Are those the kinds of things you gotta learn along the way?
RM: Yeah-um…that stuff you learn in elementary, I think junior high. Maybe by the time you get to college, but we should know better. Um, I’m just happy we got the win. We really dug deep. So…
AH: Talk about your fourth quarter -- you kinda took over this game. You had 12 of your, uh, your 15 points at the end of regulation, 12 of those in the fourth quarter. What did you guys see in that fourth quarter that you were able to take advantage of?And more (via the American Chronicle, I assume from the post-game press conference):
RM: Um, the coaches actually put in a couple plays yesterday in preparation for this game. And she called it! And it just happened to work. So we was like, “Ok, we’re gonna keep on running it until they stop it.” And it worked. Like a lot of times Candice would set amazing screens. Um…and I was just getting an open lane to the basket.
AH: You went down a couple of hard times. How are you feeling?
RM: Yeah I’m gonna have to get in a cold tub and call Tina – you know, the massage lady. And ask her to help me out a little bit. But it will feel good in the morning when I know we won.
AH: A career-high 21 points, that has to feel nice. But that also has to feel nice that it comes in a victory…If you guys had lost this one off of the loss to Sacramento, that really would have been two tough back to back games.
RM: That would hurt. And it would have been our own fault because we would have shot ourselves in the foot. But hey, we won. So that’s all that matters.
AH: You know you guys couldn’t find a way to win that one in Sacramento. But you kinda found a way to do it here tonight. You kinda feel that way?
RM: We did. You know we did learn from the Sacramento game – you learn that the game isn’t over till that buzzer rings and you saw that…it really wasn’t today. You know we had .4 seconds and she really almost-…she coulda hit that shot that she just shot. So…I mean…it’s a 40 minute game – but in our case, you know, 45 minutes – but you know, you gotta play till that buzzer.
AH: Ok, thoughts on facing San Antonio, a tough Western Conference power, coming up on Friday night and rounding out this home stand.
RM: Um… I’m excited…um…you know, it’s exciting for me, personally, to play a team for the first time because this is my first year in the league and I don’t know what teams are like. And it’s just exciting, I’m playing against a great point guard – Becky Hammon – so it’s just exciting and I’m just looking forward to it.
Said Montgomery: "I didn't really catch fire, I just shot layups. It wasn't like I was on fire from (three-point range)."OK, so maybe she dropped a few cliche's in there near the latter half...but it was still great. And how great is it to hear someone just be so excited to play the next game? Will be keeping an eye on her development this season.
