Catchings still hungry for WNBA title after winning 3rd gold in London
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
The Fever and Mystics were tied at 45 in the third quarter when Tamika Catchings got that look in her eye.
It’s a look opponents would rather not see, a warning that arguably the nicest person in the world has shifted into takeover mode.
Uh oh.
Catchings just won another gold medal at the Olympics, and she didn’t come all the way back across the pond to lose her first game back. So when that possibility presented itself, Catchings took control. She rebounded a miss by Katie Douglas, then stuck an 18-foot jumper, igniting an
8-0 run that basically ended Thursday’s game.
It’s the kind of play that shows that the 33-year old Catchings still has that fire to win her first WNBA title.
Erlana Larkins scored a career-high 16 points and Catchings had 14 points and 14 rebounds during Indiana’s 84-66 win over Washington. The double-double was the 76th of Catchings’ career, tying her with Lauren Jackson for third in WNBA history.
Catchings didn’t shoot well against the Mystics – she made 6 of 15 shots while trying to adjust to being a scorer again after being a role player in London.
She’s not worried.
“I know that they’re good shots and that the shots will fall, it’s just a matter of getting back into the repetition and the game mode of having those shots,” she said.
Whatever it takes to clear that final elusive hurdle. She’s a three-time gold medalist, the reigning WNBA MVP and a four-time defensive player of the year. The only thing left is a WNBA championship.
Team USA, a compilation of the world’s best talent, sacrificed personal glory for team greatness. It’s a concept Catchings wants to instill in her team back home. It’s the only way she’ll finally reach the one goal that remains unreached.
“Coming in this morning, we had a talk before practice, and I was saying, ‘Do you realize how good this team can be?'” she said. “You see it. You see it through one or two or three or four minutes, and then it goes back to whatever, and then you might see it again. If we can just get consistent. And it starts in practices. If we’re consistent in practices, it will carry over to the games. We’re just trying to get twisted to that mindset that our practice has to be our games, too.”
For at least the third quarter, it appeared the message got through. The Fever held the Mystics to 2-for-13 shooting and outrebounded them 16-6 in the period. Catchings, who had done little on the offensive end in the first half, had six points and seven rebounds, including four offensive boards, in the third quarter. The Fever had eight offensive rebounds and 10 second-chance points in the period.
The effort on the boards in the second half is what Catchings is looking for.
As a team, that’s something that we know we’ve got to focus on, that we’ve got to get better on in order to be successful for the second half and going to where we want to be in the end. Tonight, I felt that everybody was focused.
Maybe you thought Catchings was poised to slip after her recent run of success, at risk to mentally take the second half of the WNBA season off. The hustle stats and the team-first stats — 14 rebounds three blocks, three steals and three assists — say otherwise.
“I’m hungrier than I was,” she said. “I feel even more inspired. We are in a situation where we have a really good team, but every single person in here has to do their job. It was just like the USA team. If everybody here does their job, this team can be unbelievable, too.”
