Charles to miss Phoenix game to kick off 3-game West Coast swing

UNCASVILLE, Conn., Sept. 11 – Trying to secure the Eastern Conference title, the Connecticut Sun hits the road for a tough three-game West Coast road trip beginning Wednesday night in Phoenix before closing out the regular season with a pair of home games against Eastern Conference rivals Indiana and Atlanta.

Tina Charles

The Sun (21-9) lead the Eastern Conference by 1½ games over Indiana (19-9), which hosts Seattle on Wednesday night.

Tina Charles, who leads the Sun in scoring (18.2 ppg) and leads the WNBA in rebounding (10.6 rpg) won’t play against Phoenix on Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m., (ESPN2), to help recover from a nagging hip and groin injury. Sun All-Star Ashja Jones is also likely to miss her 11th straight game since straining her left Achilles tendon against Washington on July 11 when her foot was accidentally stepped on by Mystics center Michelle Snow.

Connecticut will be at Los Angeles (20-10) on Friday night, Sept. 14, for an 11 p.m. start at the Staples Center (NBA TV) and conclude the trip with a visit to Seattle (13-14) to face Sue Bird and the Storm on Sunday night, Sept. 16 at 9 p.m.

“We’re playing Phoenix and you don’t know which Phoenix team you’re going to get. We’re going to play the game without Tina,” Sun coach Mike Thibault said. “Obviously Los Angeles and Seattle are playoff teams, we lost to them here at home.

“The LA game was probably one of the best WNBA games for people to watch of the year, we just didn’t win it,” he said. The Sun dropped a 87-81 decision to the Sparks at the Mohegan Sun Casino on June 13, limiting Connecticut to just one field goal in the final 6:51 of the game.

“We’ll see where we are by the time we get there,” he said. “Expectations are to do what we’ve been doing, play as hard as we can on the road and try to out-work the opponent and see what happens. There’s not a lot of special strategy, all three teams have a different style about them.”