Sun Clip Wings For Third Straight Win

Courtney Williams takes it to the hole, driving the lane against the
Dallas Wings in the Sun's 10-point victory on Sunday.

By Bob Phillips

Photos by Bill Harper

UNCASVILLE—Playoffs, here we come! Again.

Courtney Williams led the way with 18 points—14 in the second half—while Jonquel Jones put up a typical double-double with a 16-point, 10 rebound effort for the Connecticut Sun, who topped the Dallas Wings, 78-68, before 7,275 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday. Jasmine Thomas added 16 points for Connecticut, and just missed a double-double with nine assists. It was the fourth straight game she scored in double digits, and it was J.J.’s 14th Double-D of the season.

The Wings’ Allisha Gray led all scorers with 22 points—the highest scoring output of her WNBA career. It represents the sixth time in her last seventh games that Gray, a 6-0 shooting guard who played at both North Carolina and South Carolina as a collegian, has scored in double digits in the 2019 campaign. Arike Ogunbowale, the former UConn nemesis out of Notre Dame, added 20, and Isabelle Harrison had 11 points and tied her career high with 13 rebounds for Dallas, which fell to 9-18. It was Harrison’s first double-double of the season, and the sixth of her career.

The Sun took a 25-13 lead at the first turn, but the Wings rallied in the second. A pull-up jumper by Gray knotted the score at 32-32 with 59.4 seconds left in the half. Shekinna Stricklen (9 points, 5 rebounds) dropped in a put-back with 39.1 seconds remaining in the half and was fouled by Gray on the play. Stricklen proceeded to drop in the freebie from the charity stripe to stake the Sun a 35-32 lead, and Connecticut never trailed thereafter.

“Exciting win for us for a lot of reasons,” said Sun head coach and general manager Curt Miller. 

“Obviously [it] clinches a spot in playoffs. When you start [the season], we talk a lot about that, but never take it for granted. So, really excited we'll be playoff bound for the third time. Really proud of these guys that we played well in this five games-in-10-days stretch.

“They stayed focused,” continued Miller, won his 75th with the Sun, becoming the eighth-fastest coach in WNBA history to reach that milestone (128 games). “That's an impressive, gutty performance, and against arguably the most athletic team in the league. So really, really proud that we got to the finish line tonight and we held them under 40 percent shooting. Arike [Ogunbowale] still [had] great numbers, but we made her work for them. And so, just proud, just proud. That's an exciting win for us considering the situation that we were in.”

Three-Fer

Sun All-Star Jonquel Jones put up her 14th Double-Double
of the season on Sunday.

With the win, the Sun improved to 19-8 and clinched a postseason berth for the third straight season. It was also the Sun’s third straight victory, and their eighth in the past 10 games.

“I mean that's always our first goal going into the season is to make playoffs,” said Jasmine Thomas. “So that's one thing we got taken care of and now we just get to play out for a position. We want to be in that first or second spot for sure.”

The 5-9 point guard out of Duke went on to describe her team’s constant, relentless defensive effort.

“We definitely put an emphasis on being disruptive,” Jasmine Thomas continued. “Whatever that is, if it's trapping, switching… you know, doing anything to take teams out of their rhythm.”

Next up, the Sun will entertain A’ja Wilson, Liz Cambage and the Las Vegas Aces on Friday. Wilson played her first game in a month on Sunday after spraining her left ankle. Wilson, the second-year forward out of South Carolina and No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 WNBA draft, missed eight games. Tip-off at the Mohegan Sun Arena is slated for 7:30 p.m. Former Sun star Lindsay Whalen will have her number raised to the rafters. Tickets. starting at $13, are available at the Mohegan Sun box office, or by clicking HERE.

For those unable to attend, the game will be televised on NBA TV, NESN+ and NBA TV Canada. Connecticut will then hit the road for a three-game road trip that will take then to Los Angeles (Aug. 25/NBA TV, NESN+, Spectrum SportsNet, NBA TV Canada), Seattle (Aug. 27/Twitter, JoeTV), and New York (Aug. 30/Fox Sports Go New York, NESN+, TSN), before returning hope for a rematch with Dallas on Sept. 4.

—with staff reports

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