Sports: Sun clinch WNBA playoff berth with 85-70 win over Phoenix

It was after their third straight loss to start the season when Connecticut Sun DeWanna Bonner smiled and said that the wins would come, encouraged the team's fan base to stay with them, and that everything would be alright.

The Sun proceeded to lose their next two games.

The wins finally came as Connecticut scratched its way back and gave itself a chance to qualify for the playoffs with a win over the Phoenix Mercury on Monday night.

Did the Sun ever deliver.

Connecticut played its best game of the season with a berth on the line. It scored the game's first nine points, never trailed and held one of the league's best offensive teams to a season-worst 35 percent shooting in an 85-70 win to earn its fourth straight WNBA playoff berth at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.

"That's what I was talking about," Bonner said. "A lot of people counted us out at the beginning when we went 0-5 and didn't think we were going to make the playoffs.

"I said, 'stay with us', and that's what I meant."

Connecticut is 10-10. It's just the third team in league history to lose their first five games and still make the playoffs.

Alyssa Thomas just missed a triple-double for the Sun with 22 points, nine rebounds and nine assists.

Bonner scored 25 points with eight rebounds and three assists against her former team. She played her first 10 years with Phoenix before being traded to the Sun in February.

Brionna Jones (10 points) was Connecticut's other double-digit scorer. She also had a game-high three steals.

The Sun used their defense to prevail. The Mercury began Monday on a six-game winning streak averaging 91 points. They're still third in the league in scoring (86.8 ppg) after the loss and fifth in field goal percentage (46.7).

"Maybe our most complete game,"

Sun head coach Curt Miller said. "Defensively, I can't ask for much more tonight. There was a real intent to have attention to how good Skylar (Diggins-Smith) and Diana (Taurasi) have played. We were able to disrupt (Phoenix), speed them up at times and turned them over."

The Mercury made a season-low 21 field goals and turned it over 17 times for 22 points.

"Everybody was a piece of that (defensive effort) with our post players jumping out and disrupting certain actions and our guards staying in plays," Miller said.

Taurasi scored 19 and Diggins-Smith

had 16 points, six rebounds and six assists.

"(Defense) was the strongest part of their game at the moment; just very aggressive," Phoenix head coach Sandy Brondello said about Connecticut. "We just didn't execute well enough on how to exploit out of their traps there, but that's a credit to them. Everything was congested."

The Sun also won despite losing their starting backcourt less than four minutes into the game.

Jasmine Thomas got tangled up underneath the Sun basket and fell less than two minutes into the game. She was helped off the court and didn't return.

She missed two games last week due to plantar fasciitis.

"We've played without Jas a couple of times, so I think we've kind of figured out how to play without her," Jones said. "Natisha (Hiedeman) came in and it looked like Jas never left with the effort she gave tonight."

Briann January, playing with a dislocated finger on her right hand, picked up her third foul less than four minutes into the game and went to the bench. She returned in the second half.

Miller said, "From 0-5 to 10-0, it's been a pretty impressive 15-game stretch for us."