Connecticut Sun end first half with 95-72 loss to Seattle Storm
ishing the quarter with eight points, and, combined with Whitcomb's unlikely 3 at the buzzer, Seattle, making things look easy, pushed the lead to 69-54.
"Offensively, they're really hard to stop," Connecticut's Jasmine Thomas said of Seattle. "They're extremely talented at each position. They're definitely hard to guard. Also, defensively, they play as a team. They force you to have to play against their length, make some extra decisions, better decisions.
"They're just a good team. Everybody's trying to match up and chase them. They're out in front pretty big."
"I really like what direction we're going," Seattle coach Gary Kloppennburg said. "We're really trying to push the ball; we're sharing the ball. I think at some point we sustain our defense and that's what's been happening. We get a good run at some point in the game to kind of wear some teams down with our running game and we get those runs."
Jasmine Thomas finished with 17 points for the Sun, including the team's first eight points. DeWanna Bonner had 13 points, Brionna Jones 12 points and 11 rebounds and Alyssa Thomas had six assists.
The Sun are 4-7, eighth in the WNBA
standings. Miller points out that eight of Connecticut's final 11 opponents are ranked sixth or lower in the standings and that the "haymakers" the team has absorbed in its opening portion of the season have the ability to help the Sun down the stretch.
"There's always two sides to the story," Miller said. "... Tonight's going to be a combination of team dinner and celebration and fellowship and then some recovery."
The Sun play seventh-place Indiana at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
"We control our own destiny. Obviously we have the ability to compete for the top eight," Miller said. "We feel OK. Even today in that first 20 minutes, we have a lot of good segments to take out. We shot a really low shooting percentage in the first half and we had it in single digits because of the defense.
"I'm encouraged."
The Sun shot just 36.4% overall, the third straight game the Storm have held their opponents under 40%. Connecticut was 3-for-20 from 3-point range.
Stewart, the regular-season and WNBA Finals MVP for the Storm's championship run in 2018, missed last season to recover from a torn Achilles, but seems to have picked up where she left off. Meanwhile, the Storm find themselves in first place despite missing Bird for five games due to a knee injury.
Stewart said maybe someday the accomplishments of this team will sink in, but not now in the fast-paced WNBA Bubble.
"It's kind of Groundhog Day here every day. You can't figure out what day it is," Stewart said.
"What we're doing right now is special and I'm sure once this bubble season and everything is over with, this season is going to go down as one for the books anyway just because of playing in a bubble, but I think it's something we'll look back on afterward."