The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Series lands where it should, a decisive Game5
UNCASVILLE — Elena Delle Donne, her back aching and spirit temporarily dampened, could be forgiven for not immediately buying into the romantic notion of how athletes dream of playing in a winnertakeall game since they were kids in the backyard.
A WNBA Finals Game 5 Thursday in Washington?
“I wanted to win in it four,” Delle Donne, the league’s MVP, said Tuesday night after the Connecticut Sun outlasted her Mystics, 9086, in a raucous Mohegan Sun Arena.
It was a quick, tidy answer in a championship series that was not meant to produce quick, tidy answers.
After the Mystics had rallied Sunday around Delle Donne’s return from a herniated disk to take a 21 series lead, the scene was set for Mike Thibault to capture his first WNBA title in the arena where he launched his lateinlife women’s basketball coaching career that should end with his enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 2012, the Sun had fired Thibault, the winningest coach in league history, after a decade of all sorts of Ws and zero championship rings. It was a calculated risk. It backfired, backfired badly, and the franchise didn’t get back on track
until Sun CEO Mitchell Etess and former general manager Chris Sienko wisely took Geno Auriemma’s suggestion and hired Curt Miller to coach late in 2015.
From the start of this series, something more than Delle Donne’s back had to give. Either Thibault, in his 17th year as WNBA coach at age 69, was going to win his first title. Or the Sun, which had been to the Finals in two of their first three seasons, were going to end their 16plusyear drought with their first title.
After four games, we don’t have a resolution.
After four games, we know when one of the teams runs out to a hot first quarter, it inevitably has sufficient energy to hold off a challenge. We just don’t know which team will have the hot first quarter.
What we do have is some fascinating storylines, some that speak to our society.
And what we do have is one hell of a basketball series that finally will have an answer Thursday night in D.C.
“When you sit there with your coach’s hat on, there are times when this series is maddening,” Miller said. “From a fan perspective, from a league perspective, the amount of shots made in pressure situations and how hard everyone is playing has got to be amazing TV and good for our league.
“I can’t be happier for the league there is a Game 5.”
Nearly 8,500 fans poured into Mohegan Sun Arena. And while no one would suggest the Sun holds the deep statewide affection of the UConn women, it is evident that a team without one of the biggest names in the sport and only one former Husky — bench player Morgan Tuck — can win games and win hearts in Connecticut. A title undoubtedly would help the franchise push interest and capture imaginations.
If we take an even broader view, there is so much to digest. Here is a franchise that has done everything right for the league, arguably done more than any other franchise, hosted AllStar Games and annual drafts. Overcome the notion that it’s too far away from a city center to keep top players. Overcome the initial notion by people — like me — that the franchise would have been better off in Hartford. Overcome the notion that a casino would ruin all that is righteous about sports and bankrupt our families morally and literally.
Legalized gambling was still in its infancy outside Vegas and Jersey and there were questions in 2002 when the league was looking to move to Connecticut. The NBA preferred Hartford, but Hartford could not provide viable ownership.
“We knew what we had with our arena and with us as an entertainment destination,” Etess said. “We were confident. We had to show David Stern this was more than a casino and basketball court in the middle of a cornfield.”
The truth is thousands of fans go to games in this arena and don’t gamble. Some do. Like anything else, from alcohol to marijuana to caffeine to doughnuts, moderation and restraint is crucial.
“If you look at gaming today, it dominates,” Etess said. “With sports betting being legal in so many places — I just read where they may put a sports book in Capital One Arena. That just shows how people’s minds about gambling has evolved over the years. It has become more commoditized, people realize it isn’t this horrible thing. It’s in all these states. People have become sensitized to it.
“The fact is David Stern saw what was coming and used this. He was the riot shield, this was the riot shield. Get it here and once it was here the discussion was kind of over. He took some bullets, but went ahead and did it and it set the stage for all the involvement you see in sports gambling today. It’s interesting. I went up to beg the (the CIAC) to bring the high school basketball championships here and they said no. Finally a few years later they said yes and everyone agrees that it has become this amazing thing. People love it. Kids run around with Run To The Sun shirts all year and there aren’t worries about gaming.”
Miller is a hell of a coach. Etess and Sienko also admit he wasn’t on their radar after firing Anne Donovan until Auriemma tipped them off. He had been successful at Bowling Green and Geno had seen his potential.
“He was a late entry into the coaching sweepstakes,” Etess said. “Sometime in the middle of the interview he said excuse me I’ve got to go to the bathroom. When he walked out, Chris and I looked at each other and said this is what we need. It was the passion. It was the commitment. You could just tell he was just living, breathing, eating basketball. He could communicate. He had what we needed. We just knew he was the guy.”
Etess and Sienko didn’t know Miller was gay until they started discussions.
“I had no idea what Curt’s sexual preference was and it didn’t matter,” Etess said. “It is immaterial. What matters is what a terrific coach he is. I do think it is another sign of how society is evolving.”
A few days prior to the start of the series, Miller spoke about the impact of a gay coach winning a major league championship would mean.
“For a long time, I wasn’t a great advocate,” Miller said. “I’m embarrassed that I wasn’t that role model. Knowing that I didn’t have one, looking up, sometimes I questioned my journey, if I could be a Division I college head coach, if I could chase these dreams. I didn’t see a lot of gay men coaching team sports. Now that I am finally comfortable with myself and feel like I can give back to the LGBT community, it’s become more of my platform. I’m still not tremendously comfortable shouting from a rooftop. I just always wanted to be known as a successful coach and not the gay successful coach.
“If anything, I hope this run shows that next generation to know they can do it and chase their dreams in athletics, as an athlete, coach, GM or in the front office of a pro team. People are doing it. There’s bit of frustration. Sometimes it’s downplayed because I’m coaching in a women’s pro league. I believe if we won a championship it would shine a light even brighter that a gay male can be a very successful team sports coach.”
Yes, there’s a lot to digest about this series. And before she stopped talking Delle Done said folks better tune in Thursday night because there’s a hell of a basketball series to be resolved.