Guru’s WNBA Report: Vegas “Angelic” Win Forces Connecticut to Semis Game 5 While Seattle Completes 3-0 Sweep of Minnesota

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

The second-seeded Seattle Storm made it an easy 92-71 victory and a 3-0 semifinals sweep of the fourth-seeded Minnesota Lynx Sunday afternoon while Angel McCoughtry’s 16-point scoring explosion in the third quarter on the way to a 29-point performance along with five rebounds, six assists, and three steals, spurred the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces to an 84-75 series tying win 2-2 over the seventh-seeded Connecticut Sun forcing a decisive Game 5 Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2 at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

 

The championship best-of-five series which Connecticut advanced to last year, losing to the Washington Mystics in a decisive Game 5 in the nation’s capital, will begin Friday night two days ahead of the original schedule on ESPN.

 

“The teams that played with more tenacity and energy have won each of the first four games so we can’t let the inability to string together stops or a turnover or missed open shot affect how we play defense,” said Connecticut coach Curt Miller, whose team otherwise would have won the series in a huge upset had the Sun prevailed in Game 4.

 

“We have to go ahead and have a great night in Game 5 defensively.

 

“Elimination games, we’ve been two for two this year,” Miller referenced the rounds one and two upsets of the sixth-seeded Chicago Sky and third-seeded Los Angeles Sparks, respectively. “We knew this series was not going to be easy. 

 

“We knew closing it out wasn’t going to be easy. They’re the No. 1 seed for a reason.”

 

Defense has carried the Sun (10-12) this far after reversing an 0-5 start before Briann January and Natisha Hiedeman arrived following a delay off testing protocol for dealing with the coronavirus that forced the entire league to go to Florida similar to the NBA and operate out of a bubble on a shortened 22-game regular season schedule with each team playing two-game series against the other 11 predominantly every other day since late July.

 

But the Aces (18-4), who caught Seattle (18-4) by beating the Storm on the final deal of the regular season, and secured the top seed off a 2-0 sweep, were the story Sunday following Connecticut’s surging finish in Game 3.

 

Regular season MVP A’ja Wilson out of South Carolina followed behind McCoughtry with 18 points and 13 rebounds for Las Vegas, while Danielle Robinson also scored 18 points, and Kayla McBride scored 11.

 

In the third quarter paced by McCoughtry, the Aces outscored Connecticut 28-16 for an 11-point lead heading to the final period in which the Sun were unable to rally.

 

For the game, Connecticut’s Jasmine Thomas, the former Duke standout, had 25 points and six assists, while Alyssa Thomas, who had a monster performance Thursday returning from a dislocated shoulder that forced to the sidelines five minutes into Game 2, scored 15 points and eight rebounds playing in all but three minutes Sunday, while DeWanna Bonner had 10 points and 15 rebounds, Brionna Jones also had 10 points, while January scored nine.

 

“We know what kind of player Angel is,” Jasmine Thomas said. “She’s always been talented and she was aggressive tonight. She got down low on us, put pressure on our defense, got into the paint against us, and then her shots started falling.

 

“When she got into a rhythm it was hard to slow her down. Her teammates fed off that. You could see the energy kind of shift.” 

 

This time the domination in the paint switched back to Las Vegas, 46-20, besides 8-3 on second chance points, and 16-8 scoring on the fast break.

 

“They killed us in the paint,” Bonner said. “That’s how we win, that’s how we get our wins by dominating the paint. “Tonight, we didn’t do that.”

 

Additionally, Connecticut committed 12 turnovers.

 

“Angel wasn’t ready to go home,” Aces coach Bill Laimbeer laughed in his opening summary about his star free agent acquisition in the offseason of McCoughtry, whose whole pro career had been with the Atlanta Dream after graduating Louisville.

 

“It was a spectacular performance (in the third quarter), it gave us the lead, we maintained the lead the rest of the way,” he continued. “I can’t believe how calm she has been playing this whole year.

 

“You look at the stat sheet, a lot of differences from the last game. They didn’t get as many offensive rebounds, we didn’t turn the ball over as many times, overall I thought we played a very solid basketball game. And on to Game 5.

 

“We didn’t get rattled at any time through this game. They had an opportunity to win (the series), now both of us have an opportunity to win.”

 

Seattle Completes Sweep of Minnesota

 

For the second time in three seasons the Storm are back in the championship series they won for the third time in 2018 and might have successfully defended that crown a year ago had they not been riddled with injuries.

 

They started in the “wubble” this time around as the preseason favorite with their health in order though head coach Dan Hughes was advised per the COVID-19 situation not to go to Florida due to his cancer surgery a year ago.

 

Assistant Gary Kloppenburg  has been guiding the show this season as he did early last season when Hughes had his surgery.

 

Back then multi-MVP Breanna Stewart was out of commission all summer with an injury suffered in her overseas competition while Sue Bird was also sidelined.

 

Stewart has since returned this summer as good as new as the former UConn great demonstrated in Sunday’s win, scoring 31 points, grabbing six rebounds, dealing seven assists, grabbing three steals and blocking a pair of shots by the Lynx (14-8).

 

Bird was also back, scoring 16 points, propelled by three 3-pointers, and she also dealt nine assists.

 

“She was really focused, you could tell before the game,” Kloppenburg said. “She’s been in these moments her whole career. She was really locked in. Her ball handling was really well.”

 

Reserve Mercedes Russell had 10 points and six rebounds.

 

Minnesota, which certainly had a successful summer considering the adversity the Lynx dealt with, thus landing former La Salle star Cheryl Reeve of South Jersey coach of the year, got 22 points and 15 rebounds from Napheesa Collier, last season’s rookie of the year, while her former UConn teammate Crystal Dangerfield, who won the award this season, scored 16, as did Damiras Dantas, and Odyssey Sims scored 10.

 

Two teams, the former Houston Comets, with the first of them, all consecutively, and Minnesota in the last decade, have won four WNBA crowns, which Seattle will try to match in the next round.

 

Las Vegas’ Laimbeer won three with the former Detroit Shock, which later became the Tulsa team and is now the Dallas Wings, coached by Brian Agler, who won one of the Seattle titles and one with the Los Angeles Sparks besides two with the Columbus Quest in the former American Basketball League.

 

A week ago the Seattle series opener was postponed when COVID-19 testing on three Storm players produced inconclusive results but subsequent tests were negative and the team quickly began making up for lost time with the Lynx to the point they now have to wait for Tuesday’s semifinals other series’ Game 5 results to see if their opponent will be the Cinderella Sun or Vegas.

 

“Our defense was pretty good and our ladies executed a good plan jump switching and we took them out of their threes, that’s what we wanted to try to do,” Kloppenburg said of a 22-2 run in the first quarter after trailing 6-0 in the opening minutes.

 

“We really set the tone in that first quarter with our defense and we got some easy baskets even though we didn’t shoot the ball that well tonight, though we turned them over 19 times for 20 points.

 

“The bench was tremendous,” Kloppenburg said. “I think we outscored them 32-7.

 

“You put things in perspective, here you are with the best players in the world and you’re playing in the championship and you have a chance to be the best team in the world this year. Our players understand with the historical situation which we’re in with the world your really wanting to be ready and come out to bring a championship back to Seattle.”

 

Of Stewart, he said, “She’s been kind of getting her wind back, getting her rhythm back this series. Obviously got back to that high level today at both ends of the floor, the defensive end as well. Stewie’s a big time game player and she’s been in those moments her entire career and kind of relishes them.”

 

Getting done early will enable Seattle to get some rest awaiting to learn the name of Friday’s opponent.

 

“We’re going to enjoy this one and then start getting prepared for who we play next,” Kloppenburg said. 

 

Said Bird, who has continued to deal with injuries of sorts, “For me, it’s been an interesting year getting in and out of the lineup, any kind of rhythm, any kind of flow for myself. So, the time has been hard, so you just have to understand to get through it, to get to the other side, to start to feel good again.

 “Today, mentally, I tried to let go a little bit, try to be a little kinder to myself, and just go out there and see what happens.

 

“It’s not easy as an athlete, you just have to play through it and see what happens. To say Minnesota got swept isn’t really fair because these were three difficult games.”

 

On Minnesota’s side, Reeve summed up, saying, “That was a vintage Sue Bird performance. I wish it would have ended differently, to be sure.

 

“But it doesn’t take anything away. This was a special season to be sure for the players, a special group, you can accomplish special things together.

 

“Nobody thought we could get past the Seattle Storm. We believed we could put ourselves into a competitive position. We were confident. Today’s game was just disappointing in so many ways. I didn’t see that coming. 

 

“Stewart imposed her will on the game. Probably wasn’t happy the way Game 1 went, maybe even Game 2, but she came out great and established herself. Offensively, we just got off to such a rough start. Struggled,” Reeve continued.

 

“We weren’t as good as we need to be in special elimination game. If there’s a silver lining in this, we’re leaving the bubble. See your families again. But this was a special group. And now we turn the page and pack up and leave the bubble.”

 

***

 

Earlier in the day, the WNBA announced the all-rookie team voted by the league’s 11 coaches (you couldn’t vote your own team) of which four were unanimous picks, highlighted by Minnesota’s Dangerfield, who won the individual award that’s part of the package deliberated by a national media panel.

 

Three others joining Dangerfield as unanimous picks were Dallas’ Satou Sabally out of Oregon, Atlanta’s Chennedy Carter out of Texas A&M, and Belgium’s Julie Allemand of the Indiana Fever.  Jazmine Jones of the New York Liberty out of Louisville picked up six votes to be the fifth member.