UNCASVILLE — After an ugly performance in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals, the Connecticut Sun coaching staff spent hours poring over potential lineups for Sunday’s elimination game.
The No. 3 Sun suffered a 90-81 defeat on their home court Friday and had a single day of practice to turn things around before facing elimination in Game 4 against the No. 2 Minnesota Lynx. Superstar Alyssa Thomas described the loss as a “poor display of what Connecticut basketball is about,” and head coach Stephanie White knew she had to go back to the drawing board.
It was around midnight, less than 24 hours before tipoff, when White and her team decided Tyasha Harris would start for the first time since suffering an ankle injury in Game 2 of the first-round series against the Indiana Fever. Marina Mabrey , who started the first three games against Minnesota, returned to her role as the spark off the bench.
“We talked about a lot of different lineups pretty much all day yesterday,” White said. “It’s never easy, so you just kick around a lot of different ideas, but I felt like with Ty specifically, we knew we needed to get her more minutes. It’s not easy to be in a position coming back from injury, coming off the bench, where you’re cold and you’ve got to get started again, so it wasn’t really giving her the best opportunity for success … I was hoping that just coming after warmups, she would still be warm and would still be able to move. We could move her around on the floor to try to minimize as much as we could.”
Harris sat out Game 1 due to the injury and played just 13 combined minutes in Games 2 and 3 of the semifinals. Even in her limited appearances she didn’t look like herself, struggling to keep up with defensive rotations. Without consistent production from Harris, Mabrey’s efficiency also declined: The Sun’s sharpshooter went 3-for-17 from 3-point range across Connecticut’s semifinal losses and averaged below 30% from the field.
But when Harris stepped back into her starting role for Game 4, she delivered exactly what Connecticut needed in the 92-82 win . The point guard had her best offensive game since June with 20 points, also a playoff career-high, and led the team going 4-for-5 from beyond the arc. Minnesota was still able to exploit her matchup at times — Natisha Hiedeman scored a postseason-high 16 points — but the Sun were able to hold the rest of the Lynx under 10 points outside of Napheesa Collier’s 29.
“It’s just preparation. I put in extra work every day regardless of what the outcome is,” Harris said. “My teammates instill confidence in me every day, and my coaches, and they stay on me, so whenever my number is called I’m just out there ready to do what I have to do … Everybody knows how it feels to feel that pressure, so just staying poised and confident and following the game plan.”
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Even with Mabrey shooting 2-for-6 on 3-pointers in Game 4, Harris’ return to form opened up the Sun’s threats at the rim. DiJonai Carrington scored five of her six field goals inside of five feet for a playoff career-high 15 points, and Connecticut finished with 50 points in the paint to Minnesota’s 30.
“She gives us another floor spacer, which opens things up for AT to attack, opens things up for (Brionna Jones) when she’s on the floor and certainly makes (DeWanna Bonner) and Marina’s life a lot easier as well,” White said. “It gives you another ball-handler on the floor, so then you have two or three people on the floor at once that can initiate offense. That’s important, because it takes a lot to bring the ball up 94 feet against pressure … We we know that when Ty is on the floor and knocking down shots for us, we have great opportunities to be successful.”
The other difference-maker for the Sun was a shift in urgency and execution with their backs against the wall. Thomas said after Game 3 that she felt the team “didn’t come to compete,” but 15-year veteran DeWanna Bonner said Sunday that it was almost the opposite: The weight of how badly they wanted to win ultimately got in their heads.
“(We) just took a deep breath, because the playoffs are high-intensity and you’ve got to breathe or else you can really overdo it and over-complicate things,” Bonner said. “At the end of that buzzer we’re going to win or lose, so there’s no reason to panic or freak out. You have to stay within yourself. I feel like when we start freaking out before the game, it psychs you out and you want it too bad. You press and you do things that aren’t characteristic. At the end of the day it’s basketball, and at the end of the day we go home and have lives, so that’s my mindset.”
Now the Sun are headed back for a win-or-go-home Game 5 at Target Center in Minneapolis, hoping to secure their third WNBA Finals appearance in the last six seasons. Connecticut was eliminated in the semifinals last year by the New York Liberty in a 3-1 series, and New York repeated the 3-1 result Sunday against the Las Vegas Aces to advance to a second straight finals. The last time the Sun played a five-game semifinal series, they beat the Chicago Sky 3-2 to advance to the 2022 Finals, but they also lost to the Aces in five in the 2020 semifinals.
“We have a lot of players on our roster that have been here, that understand what it takes and tonight’s efforts not going to be good enough in a Game 5,” White said. “We expect them to make adjustments. We’ll make some tweaks and adjustments as well, but at this point you know each other inside and out. It’s about players making plays. It’s about the extra efforts, the hustle plays. It’s about not being denied and finding something deep inside of you that just allows you to come out on top.”
How to watch Connecticut Sun vs. Minnesota Lynx in WNBA semifinals Game 5
Site: Target Center, Minneapolis
Series record: 2-2
Time: 8 p.m. ET, Tuesday
Last meeting: 92-82, Sun; Oct. 6 in Uncasville
TV: ESPN
Streaming: ESPN+
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