Guru’s WNBA Report: Minnesota Stops Phoenix at the Finish While Connecticut Slams Los Angeles to Advance to Sunday’s Best-of-Five Semifinals Openers

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

Unlike Tuesday when fifth-seeded Phoenix was able to oust the eighth-seed and defending WNBA champion Washington Mystics on the final play of the game in round one of the playoffs, this time fourth-seeded Minnesota took care of the Mercury defensively Thursday night on the last possession in which former Notre Dame great Skylar Diggins-Smith missed the final shot and the Lynx eked out an 80-79 rallying victory to move on to the opener of Sunday’s best-of-five semifinals against the second-seeded Seattle Storm, who hold a double bye with a week off.

 

“It’s great win you win and terrible when you lose,” said Phoenix coach Sandy Brondello. “I’m disappointed but the girls can hold their heads high. I’m not sure anyone thought we could get this far with the team we had. But we stuck together.”

 

In the other Thursday game, the seventh-seeded Connecticut Sun stunned the third-seeded Los Angeles Sparks 73-59 in a game in which the differential was even wider at times and move on to the other semifinal series Sunday, opening against the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces.

 

Both lower seeded semifinal teams were swept by Sunday’s opponents 2-0 during the coronavirus-shortened 22-game regular season, which has continued now into playoffs mode at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

 

Earlier in the day, the WNBA announced the first three of its annual postseason awards voted by a nationwide media panel with third-year pro A’ja Wilson, the former South Carolina great on Las Vegas, collecting the most valuable player award while Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, a former La Salle star from South Jersey, picked up her third coach of the year honor, and UConn product Crystal Dangerfield followed her former Huskies and now Lynx teammate Napheesa Collier in collecting the rookie of the year honors.

 

Dangerfield is the first rookie in the 24-year history of the WNBA to win the award while not having been drafted in the first round.

 

Minnesota, Thursday night, was able to get back dominate center Sylvia Fowles, who was out most of the season rehabbing an injury though her play was spotty, finishing with six points and four rebounds in just 18 minutes.

 

Meanwhile, on the Phoenix side, Temple grad Shey Peddy, the heroine of Thursday’s win as the improbable Mercury player to take the game-winner from the outside at the finish, this time after doing a fine defensive job on Dangerfield to give the Mercury an early lead, she was forced to exit early in the second quarter after getting hit in the face and after a brief attempt in the second half to play following undergoing a concussion protocol, she was unable to continue.

 

Peddy, who ended up scoring 12 points against Washington, scored just three and played just 14 minutes.

 

Likewise, Los Angeles was without one of its top stars from the outset against Connecticut with Nneka Ogwumike, the Stanford grad and WNBA players union president, unable to play due to a migraine headache attack.

 

That said, the Sun, who rallied to return to the playoffs following an 0-5 start to the season, forged a tremendous defense and was able to raise their three-point productivity to take a 22-8 lead after the opening quarter and never get seriously threatened the rest of the way.

 

The Sparks total was the lowest for any quarter for them all season.

 

Former Maryland star Alyssa Thomas had 19 points, seven rebounds, and five assists for the Sun.

 

“Right now, I think she’s the best defender in the league, going 1-5,” Connecticut coach Curt Miller said.

 

“Our toughness was a big part of what we’ve done so far, but we’re going to have to raise it to a whole other level playing Las Vegas.”

 

The Connecticut-Las Vegas opener will air at 1 p.m. on ESPN, while the Minnesota-Seattle game follows at 3 p.m. on ABC, with both games streamed across the family of ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 apps under the Disney umbrella.

 

In the Connecticut game, former Auburn standout DeWanna Bonner, acquired through free agency out of Phoenix in the offseason, had 17 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists, while former Maryland star Brionna Jones had 10 points and eight rebounds, former Duke star Jasmine Thomas, playing with a foot problem, had 10 points and dealt six assists, and Briann January, a former Arizona State star also brought in through free agency, had 11 points and dealt four assists, and made all three of her attempts from beyond the arc.

 

On the Los Angeles side, the one consistent force was former Tennessee standout Candace Parker, who had 22 points and 14 rebounds, Seimone Augustus scored 10, but they were the only Sparks players to score in double figures, and prominent playmaker Chelsea Gray had four points and no assists.

 

“It’s disappointing as a competitor,” second-year Los Angeles coach Derek Fisher said of the loss. “Anytime your season is without the championship for different reasons you know it can be disappointing. I can tell you from experience it doesn’t feel much better from this to get that far (the finals) and lose.

 

“I think the competitiveness was there,” Fisher said of the game. “I thought our players intentions were good, they tried to make the plays, the shots, and doing things that were not happening and coming together in a way that really allowed us to win this game.”

 

It was the second straight year that Connecticut dispatched Los Angeles from the postseason after 12 months ago ousting them from the semifinals in a 3-0 sweep.

 

Last October, the Sun made it to the finals, extending Washington until early in the fourth quarter of the decisive Game 5 when the Mystics pulled away to win their first title.

 

Parker had said that loss to the Sun was on her mind prior to Thursday’s game.

 

Asked about next year, she said, “It’s weird, you blink and you go from being a rookie to a vet. I can remember my rookie year. You look at a number of athletes and you praise them when they’re winning.

 

“My decision isn’t going to be determined by what other people think,” Parker said. “I’ve stayed with L.A. for 13 years. I’m loyal. I’ve been with Adidas my entire career. I stayed with Tennessee when things got hard. I don’t quit. I would rather not quit than take the easy way out, any day.”

 

On missing Ogwumike from the lineup, which seemed to have the Sparks out of sorts from the opening tap, Parker noted, “I’m not going to say we were caught off guard and came out (the way we did), in the first quarter, no.

 

“We played three terrible games, we went from not losing two in a row to losing three straight. Everybody can talk about defense, but it’s our offense. We didn’t score, it was 8-22 in the first quarter.”

 

Parker pointed to the loss to Washington, the first of the three, last Thursday that seemed to change the karma on the Sparks.

 

 During the regular season, Connecticut was swept by Los Angeles in their two games and only won two games against teams with .500 or better — Chicago and Phoenix (in what became the playoff qualifier) before dominating Chicago and Los Angeles this week to get to the semifinals.

 

“Our defense was terrific,” Miller said. “Did (Los Angeles) miss some shots they were capable of making? Absolutely. That’s always the case. But take nothing away from our defense. We were on point.”

 

In the opener, Minnesota rallied from a nine-point half-time deficit to outscore Phoenix 23-14 in the third period and was able to do enough to prevail at the finish.

 

Dangerfield, unlike most of the season, never got going until late in the game for the Lynx, but finished with 17 points, while Damiras Dantas had 22, making 4 of 9 three-pointers, and grabbed eight rebounds, and Odyssey Sims, whom Reeves credited for getting them untracked, finished with 14 points.

 

Collier had seven points and nine rebounds.

 

On the Phoenix side, former UConn great Diana Taurasi had 28 points and dealt nine assists, while Brianna Turner had a double double of 13 points and 14 rebounds, and former Rutgers star Kia Vauhgn, brought in as a back-up center to former Baylor great Brittney Griner, who left several weeks ago for personal reasons, had 10 points and eight rebounds, but Diggins-Smith was held to eight points, four rebounds, and dealt six assists.

 

It’s the first time in three seasons Minnesota, which has won four titles (2011, 13, 15, 17) and been to two other championship finals, has reached the semifinals. 

 

“For whatever reason, this team they keep playing,” Reeve said of the Lynx resiliency. “Crystal keeps getting better as the game goes on. We’re thinking of sitting her in the first half, saving her for the second.”

 

Dangerfield noted the consequence of the one-game do-or-die setups in the first two rounds.

 

“This was a win or go home situation for us,” she said. “And we weren’t ready to go home just yet.”

 

Of her uncharacteristic play early in this one, Dangerfield brushed aside the extra events earlier being presented with the award, saying, “I think most of the nerves was, it was my first playoff game.”

 

Reeve also credited assistant Katie Smith, the former WNBA All-Star and until this season New York Liberty coach for designing the defensive scheme at the finish.

 

Dangerfield was the second highest fourth-quarter scorer in the league this season behind Atlanta rookie Chennedy Carter.

 

“She has ice in her veins,” Collier said. “She just comes alive in the fourth.”

 

The defeat was just the second in 16 of WNBA win-or-go home games that Taurasi was on the losing side.

 

“We just needed one more play at the end of the game and we didn’t get it,” Taurasi said. “Sometimes it just comes down to that. I’m sure there are other plays you wish you could have back but what’s done is done; we fell short.”

 

Phoenix persevered from last month to get to the postseason when they Mercury lost Griner plus former UConn star Bria Hartley to a knee injury after she was having one of her better seasons.

 

“We showed incredible character,” said Taurasi, who is now 38. “We went through a lot of stuff this year, on and off the court. We stayed together. We could have easily quit. We were one possession away. It’s going to hurt for a little bit.”

 

Taurasi passed former UConn teammate and longtime friend Sue Bird of Seattle for second in career playoff assists with 262, while she already is first in postseason scoring. She also passed current NBA San Antonio assistant Becky Hammon in playoff games at fifth with 61.

 

Taurasi indicated she’d like to return next year and chase another title but there are a lot more things in the equation right now between married with a son (former Phoenix star Penny Taylor) and the unknown future caused by the coronavirus.

 

“My contract’s up, so there’s some things I’ve gotta figure out,” Taurasi said.

 

Early in the season when Connecticut struggled, Miller kept saying he knew the defense would get better because “individually, all our players are great defenders.

 

“Noe one is going to pick us to win,” Miller said of the series against Las Vegas, which, like Seattle, will have gotten a week’s rest after beating the Storm Sunday to tie for first and take the No. 1 seed off a sweep in their series.

 

“We’re going to use that chip, even if it’s not happening, we’re definitely going to use the #disrespectCT card and believe we are truly the underdogs going into the series.

 

“No one picked us to beat Los Angeles.”

 

He pointed to the Sun’s ball handling as a key.

 

“I think we’re now 10-1 when we turn the ball over less than 13 times a game,” Miller noted. “It helps set our defense. It gets us more shot attempts than the opponents. It was a huge story tonight.

 

“That first-quarter defense set the tone. It really set the tone,” Miller said of the 22-8 start. “We were locked in. It’s not easy to hold that team for four straight quarters to under 20 points a quarter.”

 

And that’s the report.

(Note, reporting of the WNBA regular season and playoff action in Florida is being achieved by remote access on zoom to conduct postgame interviews)