Mercury, Sun meet again in playoffs
Connecticut adores Diana Taurasi. It also wants nothing to do with Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury.
For a second consecutive year, the Taurasi-led Mercury stand between the Connecticut Sun and the WNBA playoff semifinals. The No. 4-seeded Sun again are at home for a secondround elimination game Thursday, but in some ways, they are the underdog against the No. 5 seed Mercury despite having a first-round bye.
Phoenix dominated Dallas 101-83 in the first round Tuesday followed by cross-country travel Wednesday. The Mercury are on a five-game win streak and are back playing close to the level they reached during an eight-game win streak in June.
“We’re not tired, we’re hungry more than anything,” Mercury coach Sandy Brondello said. “We’re back playing good basketball. This team is driven, but we know every single game is a new challenge for us.
“We have a long day of travel (6 a.m.-8 p.m., including time change). It’s tough, but there’s no use complaining about it. We’ve just got to focus on the job at hand, get our recovery as much as we can so come game time, we’re ready to go, and we’ll put our best effort forth.”
Connecticut was 21-13 in the regular season, one game better than the Mercury, who beat the Sun in two out of three meetings. The Sun have won nine of their last 10 games and four straight and will do everything possible to prevent their season from again ending at the hands of former University of Connecticut All-American Taurasi, now 12-0 in WNBA playoff winner-take-all games.
Taurasi has had 12 or more assists in three of her last four games while also averaging 22.2 points over that span. She’s achieved a distributor/scorer balance that makes the Mercury difficult to stop in combination with center Brittney Griner and forward DeWanna Bonner.
The 6-foot-4 Bonner is averaging 26 points and 11.2 rebounds over the last four games and has pulled double-figure rebounds in five of eight games since moving full time to power forward on Aug. 1.
Connecticut has size to counter 6-9 Griner and Bonner, particularly if 6-4 Chiney Ogwumike is back from a knee injury that kept her out of the last two regular-season games.
Ogwumike was starting ahead of 6-6 Jonquel Jones, but it’s possible Sun coach Curt Miller could employ them together against the Mercury like he did on July 5, an 84-77 Phoenix win when Jones started but had just two points in 13 minutes.
The Sun were only at full strength against Phoenix once this season, a 9187 win July 13 when Jones came off the bench but Ogwumike, forward Alyssa Thomas and guard Courtney Williams were all available.
“Curt really goes deep and they’ve very productive,” Brondello said. “We have to be ready to handle pick and rolls. Alyssa Thomas is a handful, Jonquel Jones is getting going again. We have a lot of respect for the team, but we’ve gone there and won before. We’ve got to make sure we continue to have good offensive execution and take them out of their transition. We know their tendencies, now it’s about how good can we stop it?”
The Mercury did enough to win 88-83 in the second round last year, led by Griner’s 26 points and Taurasi’s 23. But the Sun were without Ogwumike, who sat out 2017 due to injury while Phoenix was missing Bonner, out due to pregnancy, and did not have guard Briann January.
So the teams are not the same although the situation is, with the winner Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, Conn.
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If the Mercury and No. 3 seed Washington win Thursday, Phoenix will play at No. 1 seed Seattle in a best-of-5 semifinal starting Sunday. But if the Mercury and No. 6 seed Los Angeles win in the second round, then Phoenix draws No. 2 seed Atlanta in the semifinals due to reseeding for each round. Semifinal games also will be played Tuesday and Aug. 31, plus Sept. 2 and 4 if necessary. Potential Mercury home games would be Aug. 31 and Sept. 2 at Talking Stick Resort Arena . ... Taurasi joked that UConn coach Geno Auriemma should be cheering for her Thursday because “he knows who carried him through the 2000s,” when the Huskies won NCAA titles from 2002-04 and Taurasi was two-time Naismith Player of the Year.
advancing to a best-of-five semifinal series starting Sunday against No. 1 seed Seattle or No. 2 Atlanta. The other second-round elimination game on Thursday is No. 6 Los Angeles at No. 3 Washington.
“We know how good they are,” Taurasi said. “They’ve got an explosive team. Last year you could say they were young. I don’t think they’re young. They’re now an experienced team that plays high tempo, that get in you defensively. They have a lot of versatile players. It’s going to be whose will is going to be imposed on which team. Ours is throw it in to BG (Griner) and see what we can get off that and defensively having to really cover up a lot of stuff. It’ll be a battle of wills.”