Connecticut keeps on winning by staying loose
It’s gameday, and not just any gameday. In roughly eight hours, Game 2 of Connecticut’s semifinal series with Las Vegas will tip off.
Theresa Plaisance should be nervous, but she’s not. Or maybe she just knows how to hide it. Either way she’s prepared to crack a joke, like she does most times she’s in front of the camera.
“All right, this is good,” she says to begin her post-shootaround media availability. “Make sure you use it with your friends.”
It doesn’t take long to realize Plaisance is a free spirit. Whether it’s through her elaborate celebrations
on the bench or knack for telling jokes, the veteran forward very much embodies the camaraderie of these Sun, who have navigated the complexity of this unprecedented season to make another run deep into the WNBA playoffs.
“Everybody has their own way of going into a game,” Plaisance said. “With us, a lot of us like to stay pretty light and happy and dancing and loose. I’m the same way. I love to bring that kind of energy. I try to keep that energy throughout the entire game.”
Personalities vary, and Plaisance’s is certainly unique, but what remains constant is the team’s winning fabric.
“You can probably argue we’re the second-winningest team in the regular season — since 2017 I think we’ve won the second-most playoff games,” Miller said.
To be precise, Miller has nine wins in the postseason since 2017. Only Washington’s Mike Thibault, with 12, has more. But what Miller doesn’t have on his resume as a head coach is a WNBA championship, and that’s where the conversation around the Sun shifts to Tuesday’s decisive Game 5 against the top-seeded Aces (7:30 p.m., ESPN). The winner will advance to play Seattle in the Finals.
Miller, 51, coached in college at Bowling Green and Indiana before landing in the WNBA as an assistant with Los Angeles in 2015. He took the Sun job a year later and, like most in his position, set out to change the culture of his team.
And, while there have been highs and lows along the way, including a loss in the 2019 Finals to Washing
ton, Miller appears to have finally landed the perfect blend of veterans and youth. He restocked his roster this offseason, trading for players with championship pedigrees: DeWanna Bonner, Briann January and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.
“We’re built more experience-wise, we’re built for some championship pedigree this year,” Miller said. “It took us a while to get there for a variety of reasons, but now that we’re there, we really believe we belong.”
The roster was in flux early. Two-time All-Star Jonquel Jones opted out. Both January and Natisha Hiedeman tested positive for COVID-19 and had to be cleared before rejoining the team. But the Sun (14-14) eventually gelled, becoming just the third team in league history to make the playoffs after starting 0-5.
Miller points to an early season film study over food and drinks as a turning point for the group.
“We were able to have some open, honest conversations about how we were feeling individually as a team and on the court,” point guard Jasmine Thomas said. “Sometimes, especially in a season like now where you’re playing every other day, those conversations don’t happen as often, you don’t have that time to have days in between games to clean up stuff off the court just in a chemistry getting-to-knowyour-teammate kind of way.” And now? “Through it all, the chemistry off the court really blossomed, and that’s a credit to our leadership from the players,” Miller said. “Now it’s translated in the second half of the season and we’re playing as well as anyone.”