WNBA Playoff Preview: A look at the Connecticut Sun

Tomorrow begins the second round of the 2017 WNBA Playoffs. The 4th seeded Connecticut Sun will host the 5th seeded Phoenix Mercury in a one-and-done playoff for a spot in the semifinals. Here is what you need to know ahead of tomorrow’s game.

The regular season

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The Sun enters the playoffs with the Hamilton-esque theme, “never satisfied”. The team entered as an underdog, if even that. After two consecutive losing seasons, the Sun had a lot to prove. The gears didn’t click right away, but Connecticut turned things around and finished the season 21-13 after going 1-5 for the month of May.

Alex Bentley (Atlanta), Jasmine Thomas (Atlanta) and Shekinna Stricklen (Seattle) bring a combined five years of postseason experience. Lynetta Kizer brings an other four years with her time in Phoenix and Indiana. However, the team does have three 2017 All-Stars in Alyssa Thomas, Jasmine Thomas, and Jonquel Jones.

Postseason experience

The current Sun team is young and lacks experience, but they know Connecticut is a franchise used to playoffs. Players like Tina Charles, Lindsay Whalen, and retired guard Katie Douglas were some of the players that led the franchise to 11 playoff appearances in the first 15 seasons at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Douglas is hoping to bring back some of the postseason atmosphere by donating 200 tickets to Sunday’s game to local organizations. “The environment around a Connecticut Sun playoff game is amazing, and this will allow deserving kids to experience the best the WNBA has to offer,” said Douglas.

Matching up against Phoenix

Phoenix, contrary to the Sun, is thought of as a playoff team. However, the team has struggled through the last through seasons. For the second year, Phoenix enters the playoffs in the single-game elimination rounds.  That didn’t stop the Mercury from cutting down third overall seed New York last year.

The Mercury finished the season 18-16 to remain over .500. Yet, the Sun have performed well against Phoenix. According to WNBA.com, the Phoenix Mercury average as many points per game as they concede to their opponents (81.9 ppg).   While Griner led the league in points per game during the regular season, the Sun average more points as a team. Connecticut averaged 84.3 points per game against the Mercury, behind only Minnesota (91.3 ppg)  and Los Angeles (87 ppg).

Stopping Griner and Diana Taurasi will be a key for the Connecticut defense. The Sun out rebound the Mercury (55%) in the three games this regular season On the offensive side, the Sun will want to attack the hoop.  The team is third in offensive ranking in the league and

Players to watch

Connecticut will need key performances from Jonquel, Alyssa and Jasmine. The trio led the team in points (Jones,15.4 ppg), rebounds (Jones,11.9 rpg) and assists (A. Thomas, 4.5 apg) throughout the season. Additionally, Stricklen is deadly from the perimeter and has given the Sun an edge on more than one occasion this season.

The key to any Mercury team remains Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner. Griner led the team in scoring in the regular season (21.9 ppg) and rebounding (7.6 rpg). Taurasi averaged second 17.9 points and 2.7 assists per game. Leilani Mitchell had an excellent game to give the Mercury the win over Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. She scored 17 points, with four rebounds and three assists against the Storm and led the team in assists all season (3.6 apg).

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Rebecca Lobo will be on-hand to call the game for ESPN tomorrow afternoon. She told The Summitt she doesn’t like making predictions, but she did offer some notes for both WNBA Playoff games.

“I think Connecticut’s a ridiculously talented team, but they’re really young and they don’t have playoff experience and that’s really, really important in the WNBA … New York is the hottest team in the WNBA. Tina Charles, every time I watch her I just kinda laugh out loud at what a ridiculous talent she is. It’s gonna be tough for Washington to win there, but they can do it.”

Tune in to ESPN 2 at 3:00 pm ET tomorrow for the action.  The Summitt will also have coverage of the major season awards announcement and post game reactions from both WNBA playoff games tomorrow.