Guru’s WNBA Report: Connecticut Slams Las Vegas in Semis Opener While Seattle Multiple Inconclusive COVID-19 Tests Cause Second Game Postponement

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

The WNBA semifinals got off to a stunning start Sunday afternoon in what was to be the opening doubleheader in the best of five series with the 7^th seeded Connecticut Sun (10-12) set to play the top-seeded and powerful Las Vegas Aces in the first game followed by the fourth-seeded Minnesota Lynx (14-8) against the second-seeded Seattle Storm (18-4) immediately afterwards at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

 

Connecticut, runners up a year ago to the Washington Mystics off a fourth-quarter eclipse by the home team in the nation’s capital in the decisive Game 5, came out thundering on the shoulders of former Duke star Jasmine Thomas, who had been dealing with plantar fasciitis, driving to an 11-point halftime lead before making it even worse for the Aces to claim an 87-62 victory.

 

Las Vegas,(18-4) after beating Seattle a week ago Sunday to finish with the same top record as the Storm, but the No. 1 seed off a 2-0 sweep in the corona virus-shortened 22-game regular season, had the luxury of a double-bye and those two teams had not played since then.

 

The Sun, however, had shown its defensive muscle upsetting the sixth-seeded Chicago Sky, Tuesday, in one of the playoffs opening round doubleheader contests, and then came back in round two Thursday to destroy the third-seeded Los Angeles Sparks, ousting them for the second straight year after a 3-0 sweep in the 2019 semifinals.

 

Connecticut had split with Chicago and was swept by Los Angeles during the season.

 

With the entire 12-team league sent to Florida to conduct a season, all had gone relatively well with the teams playing primarily every other day since late July until around 2:30 p.m. Sunday when the league announced off the summer-long testing that several Seattle players had inconclusive results and that “out of an abundance of caution” the second game was to be postponed.

 

The players with the inconclusive results had undergone additional testing Sunday afternoon and were placed in isolation and a new date for the game was to be communicated as developments warranted.

 

Late Sunday night the league sent a new schedule for Tuesday showing Game 2 between the Sun and Aces to air at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 as originally scheduled, and Game 1 between the Lynx and Storm to air at nine on the same network.

On Thursday, Minnesota-Seattle Game 2 will air at 7 p.m. and Connecticut-Las Vegas Game 3 at 9 p.m. on ESPN2.

While previously a blueprint all the way through the finals was sent, the Sunday night release then notes Minnesota-Seattle Game 3 with no date and it all stops at that point pending if needs occur for  Games 4 and 5, which could impact the original start to finals, which isn’t listed. 

 

Meanwhile, soon after the Connecticut game concluded, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was interviewed by ESPN’s Holly Rowe, who has been sidelining the games inside “the wubble” all summer while play-by-play broadcasters and analysts had done their jobs by remote from homes and studios on all the networks airing the games.

 

“As you know, health and safety were No. 1 when we were planning this back in May and June,” the commissioner took Rowe through the process that developed Sunday.

 

“We got some tests back for the Seattle team and they were inconclusive, so especially when there’s multiple players on a team, we can’t really take a chance and expose the bubble to any kind of community spread, we need to get more data, get more testing, get more data to see where we have an issue or not, so we decided to postpone the game.”

 

Minnesota was already in the building warming up, but the commissioner related, “I was back at the hotel right when Seattle was boarding the bus when we got the information.

 

“So I went on the bus and told the players on the bus what was happening, that it was real time, that we needed more testing, that we need more data, and as soon as I talked to them, it was clear they were concerned, we’re all concerned for safety while we’re here and it wasn’t about basketball at that point, it was about doing the right thing and and after talking to players, talking to league officials, talking to some medical safety health (officials) that this was the right thing to do so we can just ge more day or two of testing back.”

 

Even if it becomes staggered, there is enough waggle to get through the semifinals on a short delay and on to the championship best-of-five series. Initially, the league had said if both series had concluded before Games 5 or 4, the championship might be moved up but for now that discussion is dispensed based on the new listings sent..

 

“This is the hardest part of COVID when you’re putting on live sports during it, every day you’re set back to zero,” Engelbert said. “The fact that we might have had seventy percent negative testing before this, doesn’t actually matter, it’s about keeping the bubble safe, that there’s no community spread, the purpose of the testing and the protocols is that if we have to pull anybody out before they’re infectious.

 

“So that is the main thing we’re trying to do here with all the data and all the testing so if someone is tested positive with COVID, we can get them into isolation, take care of them and then move on to play,” Engelbert continued.

 

“So hopefully, we’ll get good data over the next 24-48 hours and be back on the court with Game 1 on Tuesday, but we have to continually test. So, the whole team has been tested today, we’ll test them tonight, we’re doing testing on those players that had the inconclusive results,” she said.

 

“You have to be right,” Engelbert said of making the decision to postpone. “You have to put the data, the science first, and while we would like to be having the game right now on ABC, we’re down to the semifinals, we have four teams left, you have to follow your gut, your instinct, you have to follow the data and the science.

 

“Everything has worked in the bubble. While it’s been hard because we have had players miss games during the season, you have to follow the science, the virus is so unpredictable that it takes time to run those tests, to get those results, and weight them for returning a player to play or a coach or a trainer.”

 

As for the game that got concluded, it’s the first time in franchise history to date that three straight Sun playoff games have  have been won by double digits.

 

Connecticut shot 50 percent from the field, the third time in their playoff history.

 

Thomas had a playoff career-high of 31 points, just a point behind Jonquel Jones and Nykesha Sales for most in Sun playoff history. She also set a Connecticut high with 22 of those points in the first half. It’s the most first-half points by a WNBA player since Angel McCoughtry, now with the Aces, had 24 with Atlanta in 2011.

 

Former Maryland star Alyssa Thomas set a WNBA mark with a stat line showing 18 points, six rebounds, five assists, five steals and two blocks. When she reached 15 points, the only player with a similar stat line was former Tennessee standout Tamika Catchings, when she played with the Indiana Fever on which she is now a front office executive.

 

Reserve Natisha Hiedman had a career-high 14 points, while DeWanna Bonner had eight points and eight rebounds.

 

The Sun lead grew to as much as 30 in the fourth quarter and the 24-point differential in the final score to their advantage was two short of the 26 set against the Sparks in a 94-68 semifinals win a year ago.

 

A’ja Wilson, voted the regular season MVP in the league, had 18 points for Las Vegas and Jacke Young had 17 off the bench.

 

“Players having a system and scheme that they have played in a couple of months that they now believe in,” said Connecticut coach Curt Miller of the defensive thrust as opposed to losing to Las Vegas during the regular season.

 

 “Just a credit to our players, their tenacity, their toughness. Vegas can really bully you and really play excellent basketball but that’s about 13, 14, 15 less field goals in a game then they had been making against us. 

 

“Tremendous job holding them to just 23-made field goals, while they still went to the foul line 20 times, everything tonight was energy, effort, tenacity, individually, but locked in as a group.”

 

As for Thomas’ play, Miller said, “I called less plays tonight than I have for weeks. Just stay out of their way and let them feel the game. It’s fun to watch a player like Jas tonight. She just got into her rhythm. I’m so happy for her.”

 

Said Thomas, “I knew the pull-up would be there. I just took the first two without a conscience and with confidence.

“It’s always good when you’re feeling you’re playing good basketball at the right time,” Thomas said. “We feel like we have good momentum. You take this win. You’re proud of it., and then you let it go.

“We know Vegas is a great team. There’s a reason they’re number one, a reason they have the MVP. They have great players over there and great coaching. They’ll make adjustments and we’ve got to be ready to stay focused and play just as hard and tough next game.”

 

Meanwhile, as for news of the second game, Miller said, Engelbert and WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson informed him and the team in the locker room after the game.

 

“There’s anxiety for our team,” he said. “Everyone’s so close in this league. We’ve done such a great job at keeping COVID out of this bubble. Just hope these are false positives.”

 

As for the view from the other side of the game, Aces coach Bill Laimbeer said, “We got beat solidly. They played harder than us, you could see in the early part of the game we didn’t have any cohesiveness about our offense for whatever reason, we have no excuses, we just didn’t play very well offensively, give credit to their defense, they just switch, a little more physical than normal, that’s playoff basketball, we didn’t handle it very well, we didn’t move, we didn’t do anything at all, and then frustration set in.

 

“When you can’t score and you’re shooting poorly, you get frustrated, and it carried over to our defense, and they just put the hammer down, they did a good job.”

Wilson said she saw this coming and the loss served as a wake-up call.

“I think we needed to get beat,” the former South Carolina star said matter-of-factly. “They worked ten times harder than us and we needed that slap in the face, 

“We have to go back to the drawing board, see what we did wrong, what we can improve on, and go from there. The best thing about this loss is there’s a lot of things we can control, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

 As for the situation with the Seattle-Minnesota game, Laimbeer revealed that “Cathy sent an email around four days ago saying, ‘you could have a situation in the playoffs where you have four players could have inconclusive results and you have have to postpone a game coming up.’

 

“First game, go figure. But it is what it is. We’ve had inconclusive tests in the bubble. Normally, it’s a 48-hour window, so hopefully they have tests now to see how quickly we can move over.”

Prior to the Connecticut game a video was shown honoring the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away Friday night of cancer. 

Also on Sunday, the league trotted out another of its postseason awards naming the Aces’ Dearica Hamby winner of the sixth player honor.