Sun stun No. 1 Aces
Jasmine Thomas scores 31 as Sun beat top-seeded Aces in Game 1.
Entering Sunday, many heavily favored the No. 1 Las Vegas Aces — home of 2020 MVP A’ja Wilson, future Hall-of-FamerAngel McCoughtry and the most productive bench in league history — over the surging No. 7 Connecticut Sun in their best-of-five semi final series.
Sure, the Sun have one of the league’s most dynamic duos in DeWanna Bonner and Alyssa Thomas, and one of the most lethal defenses in the WNBA bubble. But the Aces are just too good on both ends of the floor, many said. Just look at how easily the Aces swept the Sun in the regular season, winning both games by 15 or more points.
There’s still a lot of basketball to play, but the Sun showed Sunday that they’re ready to scratch and claw their way to the Finals, no matter who they have to go up against. Behind stellar defense and an unstoppable Jasmine Thomas, Connecticut made Vegas look all out of sorts on its way to a 87-62 victory to go up 1-0 in the series. The Sun led by at least 15, and by as many as 30, for the final 16.5 minutes of the game.
Here’s a look at howthey did it:
Player of the game: Jasmine Thomas
As much as Bonner and Alyssa Thomas power the Sun’s offense, the Sun are at their best when Jasmine Thomas is aggressive, too. The extent to which the point guard could make a big impact, though, was up in the air entering the playoffs, as she’s dealing with plantar fasciitis that shut her down for a large stretch at the end of the regular season.
Jasmine put much of that concern to rest in Game1. Shefinished witha career-high 31 points (22 in the first half ) on 13-for-18 shooting, making her the first person in WNBAplayoff history to shoot 70 percent on 18 or more field goal attempts.
“We talked about it in the scout, what opportunities would be open for me,” Thomas said. “All season they’ve been going under in the tunnel. They were kind of playing mesoft there, so I knew the pull-up would be there. Took the first few of them with a lot of confidence because I knew my team mates were expecting me to, and once those went in, I just felt good.”
Thomas’ outburst allowed the Sun to build their sizable lead over the Ace sand was a welcomed boost
with the rest of the team not shooting spectacularly for much of the game. Bonner in particular was scoreless from the field at the half and finished with just eight points.
The Aces, down 13 at halftime, still weren’t able to contain a hot-shooting Jasmine Thomas to start the third quarter. She scored seven straight points and chipped in to a 10-0 Sun run that putConnecticutupby24 with 3:53 left in the period. At that point, Jasmine had exactly as manypoints(31) as the entire Aces team.
By then, Vegas was rocked back on their heels and, combinedwiththeirsystem’s lack of dedication to the 3-ball, made a 20-plus-point lead seem nearly impossible to overcome.
Let’s talk about: Sun’s defense
In their first twomeetings, Vegas was pretty much able to get whatever shots they wanted, both times finishing with 90-plus points and shooting 52percent or better.
Sunday was a different story.
The Sun held Vegas, who ended the regular season with the second-best offense in the league, to 10 first-quarter points and 25 at half. The Aces shot a season-low 33.8 percent, making only 23 field goals, andturnedovertheball 14 times. Connecticut also controlled thedefensive glass to limit the Aces’ secondchance opportunities.
ThoughWilson(19 points) got hertouches, Jackie Young (17) was the only other Aces player withmorethansix, but 12 of them came in garbage time. McCoughtry had a frustrating game with only six points on1-for-8shooting.
“They want to get in the paint,” Alyssa Thomas said. “For us, it’s about congesting, about making their shots tough and not letting them
get second-chance opportunities. When we’re firing on all cylinders like this and our defense is playing the way that we’re playing, we’re a scary team.”
“Everything tonight was energy, effort and tenacity,” Sun coach Curt Miller said, “individually but locked in as a group trying to stay cohesive defensively.”
Storm-Lynx game postponed
The first game of the Minnesota Lynx-Seattle Storm series, which was supposed to start at 3 p.m. Sunday, was postponed due to multiple inconclusive COVID-19 tests from Seattle players, the WNBA announced. The affected players have undergone additional testing and are in isolation. Though inconclusive COVID-19 tests, and false positives, have popped up sporadically throughout the summer, the league has not announced any actual COVID-19 cases besides four during the league’s initial two-week quarantine period upon their arrival in Florida.
If all remains as planned, Game 2 in the Sun-Aces series will tip off Tuesday at 9 p.m.