Seattle plays tough in victory over Connecticut

Seattle’s Gabby Miller (5) tries to slow down Connecticut’s DeWanna Bonner, right, in Tuesday night’s WNBA game in Uncasville. The Storm prevailed 71-64.

UNCASVILLE, Conn., Sept. 3, 2024 – The WNBA playoffs are about toughness and mental discipline. It’s about shrugging off a few bad plays and staying focused.

With just seven games remaining in the regular season, the Connecticut Sun got a little taste of the type of intensity they may face in the playoffs.

The Sun were facing a proud Seattle Storm team that had dropped a seven-point decision just two days earlier at the Mohegan Sun Arena. Seattle erased an early 12-point deficit and put four players in double figures to beat the Sun, 71-64 on Tuesday night.

Skylar Diggins-Smith led the way for the Storm with 18 points, including 14 in the second half, with Jewell Loyd scoring 17 and Nneka Ogwumike adding 14.

The Sun, who fell into a tie for second place with Minnesota (24-9) received a game-high 26 points from DeWanna Bonner and 21 from Brionna Jones. But they got little additional help on the offense end. DiJonai Carrington had just nine points and Alyssa Thomas added four.

Guard Marina Mabrey, who has been an offensive spark in her first eight games with the Sun with an average of 15.5 points, had just two points.

“They got a little more physical with us and that stopped our movement at times,” Sun coach Stephanie White said. “We weren’t making the right reads. We’re very good at setting or using screens and they forced us to rush. We kind of passed through each other.”

Connecticut (24-9) lost for just the second time since the league returned from the Olympics. This game was the third of four contests in a span of six days. The Sun host defending league champion Las Vegas on Friday here in Uncasville at 7:30 p.m.

“It’s about discipline to details,” White said. “It’s understanding what teams are going to try to do to us. The more the teams that we play the more there will be physicality and we have to find a way to execute when we are under duress.”

Connecticut’s 64 points mark the team’s second lowest point-production of the season. Their lowest outing was 61 points, also against the Storm on June 21 in Seattle. The Sun has only scored fewer than 70 points in a game five times this season, going 2-3 in those games.

On Sunday, Jones had a season-high 26 points in a 93-86 win over Seattle with Mabrey adding 15 points and her fifth straight double-digit outing. Carrington had 14 points and three steals. The Sun scored a season-high 56 points in the paint on Sunday.

Last night, Connecticut got off to a strong start led by Bonner and Jones. They led by 12 points late in the first quarter.

Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas keeps the pressure on Seattle’s Nneka Ogwumike in Tuesday’s WNBA game in Uncasville.

But Seattle kept plugging away with Loyd hitting a three-point shot in the waning seconds of the quarter to give the Storm a 34-31 lead, a lead they would never relinquish.

In the third quarter, Bonner hit a three-point shot from the corner to tie the game at 40 but Seattle’s Gabby Miller, the former UConn star, quickly responded with a jumper in the lane  and after a turnover, it was Diggins-Smith with an uncontested layup and the lead was back to four, 44-40.

Jones tied the game at 46 with a nice feed in the lane from Bonner and a foul shot. But Seattle responded with a quick 6-0 run. Diggins-Smith put back her own shot in the lane, Loyd scored after some nice passing by the Storm and Ogwumike scored in the lane off a nice assist from Diggins-Smith for a 52-46 lead.

“It’s a game of runs we have to be able to answer their runs, minimize their runs, maximize ours, find a way to stay together and preserve and be resilient with things aren’t going our way,” White said. “That tends to be mostly on the offensive end. We have to find other ways to score. We have to be a little more patient.”

Seattle extended their lead to 11 points early in the fourth quarter. The Sun cut the lead to three, 63-60, with 3:27 remaining when Jones scored over two defenders in the lane off a nice feed from Thomas.

Thomas scored off an offensive rebound with 4:44 remaining and Bonner had a nice drive to the basket with 4:05 left.

But Jones field goal was the last field goal for the Sun until Bonner sank a three-point shot with 8.4 seconds left and the Storm with an eight-point lead.

Notables

• Carrington finished with nine points, seven rebounds, one assists and one block in the game. She entered the game with a streak of nine straight games with at least one steal but failed to pick one up against the Storm.
• Thomas finished six points below her scoring average, notching four points, along with six rebounds, seven assists and two steals. It was her 21st outing with 7+ assists in a game this season, which leads the league (tied with Caitlin Clark).
• Ty Harris scored a season-low two points in the game but matched her season-high with seven assists.
• The Sun led by as many as 12 points in the game and entered the contest 19-1 when leading by 10+ in any contest, including 11-0 at home.
• Both teams turned the ball over 15 times, with the Sun tallying 18 points off turnovers and the Storm tallying 17 points off turnovers.
• Connecticut notched a season-low two bench points in the game.

Seattle 71, Connecticut 64
At Uncasville, Conn.
Seattle (71) Williams 5-8 1-2 11, Ogwumike 7-12 0-0 14, Magbegor 2-4 0-0 4, Loyd 5-16 4-7 17, Diggins-Smith 7-14 4-4 18, Russell 1-2 0-0 2, Horston 2-2 1-2 5, Whitcomb 0-2 0-0 0, Holmes 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 29-62 10-15 71
Connecticut (64) Bonner 9-19 4-6 26, Thomas 1-5 2-4 4, Jones 8-11 5-7 21, Carrington 4-9 0-0 9, Harris 1-5 0-0 2, Mabrey 1-7 0-0 2, Nelson-Ododa 0-0 0-0 0, Burton 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 24-58 11-17 64
Seattle (20-13)             13  21  21  16  — 71
Connecticut (24-9)    18  13  17  16  — 64
Three-point goals: Seattle 3-17 (Williams 0-1, Ogwumike 0-2, Magbegor 0-1, Loyd 3-8, Diggins-Smith 0-3, Whitcomb 0-1, Holmes 0-1); Connecticut 5-15 (Bonner 4-7, Carrington 1-2, Harris 0-1, Mabrey 0-5).