Sun take to the Sky tonight
Streaking Connecticut has won five straight headed to Chicago
The Connecticut Sun have earned the WNBA playoff berth they coveted.
Now the Sun are playing for a home game.
Connecticut has won five in a row and needs to keeping winning to improve its seeding. It plays its final regular-season road game at the Chicago Sky on Friday night in this weekend's home-and-home series (Wintrust Arena, NBCSB, 9).
Eight teams qualify for the playoffs, with the first two rounds being one-and-done. The bottom four seeds play in the opening round. The winners play the third and fourth seeds in the second round.
The top two seeds get an invaluable double-bye (and rest) to the best-of-five semifinals.
Connecticut (17-12) is fifth in the overall standings. It cannot catch the first-place Seattle Storm (238). It'll be tough for it to catch the second-place Atlanta Dream (2010), too, as the latter won the headto-head tiebreaker by sweeping their three-game series with the Sun.
Connecticut trails the thirdplace Washington Mystics (19-11) by 1 1/2 games, and the fourthplace Los Angeles Sparks (18-12) by one-half game.
The Sun holds the tiebreaker over the Sparks and split their season series with the Mystics.
Connecticut has a one-game lead over the defending champion Minnesota Lynx (16-13), which played at the Las Vegas Aces late Thursday night. The Sun won the season series against the Lynx and play host to them on Aug. 17.
The Phoenix Mercury (16-14) are in seventh and 1 1/2 behind Connecticut, but hold the tiebreaker over the Sun.
The Sun have a 3 1/2-game lead over Dallas (14-15) and won the tiebreaker.
Chicago (10-19) is dangerously close to being eliminated from playoff contention. It was crushed by Connecticut in the teams' only meeting, 110-72 (June 1), but Sky starters Stefanie Dolson (center) and Allie Quigley (guard) both missed that game due to injuries.
Quigley, who won her second straight WNBA All-Star 3-point contest in late July, has averaged a team-high 16.1 points. Point guard Courtney Vandersloot (12 ppg) leads the league in assists (8.4).
The Sun have scored 90-or-more points their last five games, a franchise record. They're the only team in the league with five players averaging 10-or-more points — Chiney Ogwumike (14.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg), Jasmine Thomas (12.7 ppg, 4.6 apg), Courtney Williams (12.6 ppg, 6.2 rpg), Alyssa Thomas (10.7 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 4.3 apg, 1.2 spg), and Jonquel Jones (10.4 ppg, 4.9 rpg).
The Sun will play the Sky again Sunday afternoon at Mohegan Sun Arena. n.griffen@theday.com