UNCASVILLE — The Connecticut Sun have limited Minnesota Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier to just 14 points per game in their WNBA semifinal series after the former UConn standout averaged 40 in the first round, but Sun coach Stephanie White instinctively bent down to the court to ‘knock on wood’ for luck when she was asked about her squad’s defensive effort in the first two games.
“(Alyssa Thomas) does a great job one-on-one of just keeping her off balance, of being physical with her, not letting her have some easy looks, but it’s always a team effort defensively,” White said. “We can’t let her have anything easy. We’ve got to force her to take and make tough shots — and she’s going to, because she’s an elite player — but we’ve just got to try to keep her off balance and not let her get anything easy … It’s understanding that you can’t make mistakes. Like, you can make mistakes, but you’ve got to make up for them with multiple levels of effort.”
Over five meetings so far in 2024, Connecticut and Minnesota have been two of the most evenly matched teams in the league. Every game between them in both the regular season and playoffs has been decided by less than eight points, and three have been won by a single possession. The Lynx’s 77-70 victory in Game 2 on Tuesday in Minneapolis was the largest margin of victory for either team in the series this year.
“I think we have similar styles of play, we do similar things. We both want to play defense, be physical, and get out in transition,” Thomas said. “It’s just two teams trying to see who can execute better down the stretch or create more possession. So touché to them, they made some adjustments in Game 2 that we knew they were going to make, but we didn’t do a good job of handling it. We needed to take a step back, watch the game film and see what they did, and now it’s our turn to make our adjustments and come in better than last game.”
Thomas, who finished in the top five in the MVP voting for the third consecutive year, has unlocked yet another level of dominance since the start of the postseason. The Connecticut superstar is averaging a near triple-double with 16.5 points, 8.8 rebounds and 10.5 assists in the playoffs plus 1.5 steals. All are improvements from her regular-season numbers, and her rebounding and assist averages are both postseason career highs. White said she sees a new level of urgency in Thomas as the franchise chases its first WNBA championship, but Thomas said she doesn’t approach the game any differently as the stakes get higher and higher.
“I know what I’m capable of,” Thomas said with a slight smile. “I easily could have done this all season, but it’s about instilling the confidence in my team and my teammates. It’s important in the playoffs. Not everybody can just come in the playoffs and play the greatest basketball, but my teammates have been playing great all year, and now it’s the time for me to do what I do and try to take this to the next level.”
The semifinal series is currently tied 1-1, and the Sun could clinch a berth to the WNBA Finals on their home court with Games 3 Friday and 4 Sunday both set to be played at Mohegan Sun Arena. If the teams split the next two matchups, they will return to Target Center in Minneapolis for the deciding Game 5 on Tuesday.
From White down to the bench contributors, Connecticut was unhappy with its performance in the Game 2 loss after its 73-70 victory to open the series. Thomas didn’t mince words describing the offense on Tuesday as “awful” but she said the team has heavily emphasized cleaning up the details in practice since returning to Uncasville.
“We didn’t do anything to help each other with setting screens or cutting,” Thomas said. “At this point in the season, it’s about who’s going to do the little things, and today we got after it … I feel like the whole series, even the regular season, we don’t feel like we’ve played that well against them. I don’t think we’ve been at our best defensively or offensively, so for us it’s just about doing what we do. Of course their job is to disrupt that, but we’ve got to do a better job.”
The Sun struggled to manage the Lynx’s physicality in Game 2, particularly in the second and third quarters as Minnesota opened up a double-digit lead entering the fourth. Connecticut, which ranks second in the WNBA in defensive rating behind only the Lynx, is a team plenty capable of asserting itself physically, and White said the adjustment the Sun need to make is far more connected to mentality than to any actual play on the court.
“I don’t think you adjust necessarily, I think the biggest thing is you show them what (Minnesota’s) physicality did,” White said. “It forced us to run offense away from the basket. We didn’t utilize our pressure releases. We didn’t keep our spacing to allow us to take advantage of the overplays … We didn’t change our angles of our screens. We didn’t set screens. We got stagnant, so we showed what the physicality forced us to do and then reminded them of what we have to do to combat against it. It’s a lot more mental than it is physical.”
How to watch
Site: Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville
Team records: Sun 31-13; Fever 33-11
Time: 7:30 p.m., Friday
Last meeting: 77-70, Lynx; Oct. 1 in Minneapolis
TV: ESPN2
Streaming: ESPN+
