SAN FRANCISCO – Seated next to teammate Erica Wheeler in the bowels of Chase Center on Sunday night, Seattle Storm guard Skylar Diggins glared at the black-and-white box score before speaking.
She then verbally eviscerated her own team following the Valkyries’ 84-57 victory.
Diggins periodically glancing back at the lone piece of paper as she laid out her argument for why the third quarter, which saw Seattle outscored 31-17, was not the reason the team lost.
“It wasn’t that quarter. It was from the jump,” Diggins said. “I thought they did everything better than us tonight. Credit them. Their effort was better. They were winning 50-50 balls. They ran the floor harder than we did.”
Her eyes then looked down at the stat sheet that showed she scored a team-high 18 points, and then the six-time WNBA all-star resumed her speech.
“20-4 on fast break points. We’re second in the league in points in the paint. It was 46 to 18. Second chance points, whew, we won that,” Diggins said sarcastically, before continuing, “They shoot 48%, we shoot 27% from the field and 21% from three. We don’t have one 20-point quarter. That’s what it is in the game. It don’t got (expletive) to do with just the third quarter.”
Diggins, whose team lost in San Francisco 76-70 two weeks prior, made sure to give the Valkyries props as she ripped her team. It’s got to do with how we played that first half of basketball. It has to do with them playing good basketball. So before I say what we did wrong, I’ll give them some credit on what they did right,” Diggins said.
“It’s embarrassing. It’s (expletive) effort on our part,” Diggins said. “As professionals, we need to come out here and play with a level about yourself, or this is what is going to happen. It’s gonna happen next game if they don’t come out with a sense of urgency to ourselves.”
The 34-year-old closed her tirade by showing respect to the boisterous fans at Chase Center.
“So credit the atmosphere they’ve created,” Diggins said, before once again checking the numbers in front of her.. “They had 29 points off the bench. I mean, I hope they feel good about this statsheet when they see it, because that’s all I can say about it. I mean, we did not show up to play tonight. So those are my thoughts about it.”
A few minutes after Diggins left the press conference, her coach Noelle Quinn demonstrated she was in lockstep with her star point guard.
“I agree with her 100%,” Quinn said..” It’s unacceptable, and frankly embarrassing. To put on a Storm uniform and perform like that. I don’t have to look at the film to understand that the effort wasn’t there.”