Aces come from behind to hand Sun second straight loss

Sep. 7—MOHEGAN — Every game these final two weeks of the WNBA season, the Connecticut Sun are fighting for seeding and momentum heading into the playoffs.

And it’s not that the Sun don’t have enough of a sense of urgency for the pressure-filled stretch. In fact, the opposite is true, head coach Stephanie White said following Connecticut’s 72-67 loss to the Las Vegas Aces before a sold-out crowd of 8,910 Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena.

“They want it really bad, right?” said White, whose team dropped its second straight game and fell into third place in the WNBA standings at 24-10.

“Sometimes when you want something really bad, you almost hinder your ability to get it because you’re tight, because you want everything to be perfect. … We’re still in a great spot, but we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to learn from it, we’ve got to grow from it and we’ve got to bounce back.”

Kelsey Plum scored 27 points and the two-time defending WNBA champion Aces outscored the Sun 11-2 over the last 3 minutes, 57 seconds, overcoming what was a 15-point Connecticut lead in the second quarter.

The Sun held a 65-61 edge after a pair of free throws by Brionna Jones with 4:12 remaining in the game.

Plum responded with a 3-pointer to pull the Aces within one and MVP favorite A’ja Wilson gave Vegas the 66-65 lead with a pair of free throws. Connecticut took its last lead at the 1:17 mark when Alyssa Thomas assisted a cutting Jones for a layup and the 67-66 edge.

Wilson scored the game-winner with 58.1 seconds to play on a step-back jump shot and Chelsea Gray added a 3-point dagger with 18.1 seconds to go.

Jones finished with 17 points and six rebounds for the Sun (24-10) and Marina Mabrey had 15 points. Wilson had 20 points and eight rebounds for the Aces (22-12).

New York is in first place in the league standings at 28-6, with Minnesota second at 25-9, Connecticut third and Las Vegas fourth, all of which would start the eight-team playoffs at home if those seeds remain.

White can’t help but think, though, that the Sun missed an opportunity on Friday, especially after Connecticut held Las Vegas to 26.5% shooting in the first half to lead 38-26 at the break.

And especially with the Sun now embarking on a four-game road trip beginning Sunday in Los Angeles.

“This is disappointing,” White said. “I feel like we hurt ourselves multiple times throughout the course of this game. … When you’re playing for championships and when you’re playing championship-caliber teams, it’s 40-minute consistency and we haven’t found that and it’s come back to bite us.

“I thought there were times we lost our poise and our composure and we’ve got to be better.”

The Sun led by 12 in the third quarter on a putback by Jones when the Aces took off on a 10-0 run, fueled by two 3-point field goals from Gray, to pull within 40-38. Connecticut’s DeWanna Bonner answered with a 3 and the Sun still led 56-49 after Mabrey started the fourth quarter by beating the shot clock and Bonner engineered a steal and a length-of-the-court layup.

But Plum’s 3-pointer with 3:57 to play pulled the Aces within 65-64 and the Sun couldn’t find their rhythm thereafter, going 1-for-6 down the stretch.

“I think the first half were just executing, we were getting stops, we were doing what we game-planned,” Connecticut’s Jones said. “The second half, we knew they were going to come out stronger (because) they felt like they didn’t play as well as they wanted in the first half.

“I think we just have to be better down the stretch, being more more poised and executing our offense and taking care of the ball.”

White said the Sun tried to make too many “home-run plays” down the stretch, trying to make the big play instead of the series of small ones that got them the lead in the first place. The Sun, for instance, held Wilson of the Aces, who is averaging 27.5 points and 12.1 rebounds per game, to just five points in the first half.

“There are times we try to make the home run play and it’s not there or we get so focused on staring at something that we might see that we try to force it and just don’t let it come,” White said. “We’ve got to get out of thinking that we’ve got to make the home run play and just play for base hits.

“We’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com