Dom Amore: Elimination? Win or go home? CT Sun has been there, done that

UNCASVILLE — The Connecticut Sun had their backs to the wall, and were being pressed against it. It’s a tight spot for sure, but nothing a veteran team hadn’t experienced before, and it’s nothing the Sun won’t experience again.

“There was nothing to be said after we lost (Game 3), we kind of sat there in silence,” DeWanna Bonner said, after the Sun survived with a 92-82 victory over the Lynx on Sunday, tying the WNBA semifinal series. “We’ve got 40 minutes or it’s done. We’ve got to breathe a little bit.”

The championship window got narrower still when the Sun were down double digits at times, by seven at halftime to Minnesota, which was a win away, close enough to sniff to the WNBA Finals and a crack at the Liberty, a so-called “super team.”

But the Sun regained their defensive identity in the nick of time, and kept their latest playoff run alive, outscoring Minnesota 25-13 in the third quarter and controlled the fourth. Two experienced teams, staffed by college and pro and Olympic champs, will play a winner-take-all fifth game in Minneapolis on Tuesday night.

“So we had 20 more minutes to turn this around,” Bonner said. “I don’t think anybody in that locker room was ready to go their separate ways. We enjoy being around each other. We’ve been around each other a long time, the majority of our core has been together for years, so we were like, ‘this is it, 20 minutes.’ Leave it all out there and see what happens.”

The Sun have been here before. They’ve won their share, lost a couple of times in The Finals. For this core of players, the end of this season could be the end of a long, successful era. The “championship window” former coach Curt Miller often referenced could be closing and the roster could break up when this is all over. The Sun have been there, heard this before, too, and resurfaced with more trips deep into the playoffs.

In other words, they’re well equipped, physically, mentally, emotionally, for what they will face.

“I just want to win, I’m old,” Bonner said. “My timeline is very slim.”

Bonner, 37, has faced elimination in college, and in The W. She played on championship teams in Phoenix before coming to Connecticut in 2020. She’s seen it all.

Ty Harris, 26, who worked her way back from an ankle injury, started Game 4 and popped for 20 points, played at South Carolina, has been in big games before, too. Maybe she hasn’t seen it all, but she has seen enough survive-and-advance scenarios.

“Listening to the players who have been here many times, we have great vets who instill that confidence in us and keep us calm and make big shots,” Harris said. “Listening to them, keeping calm, playing Connecticut Sun basketball.”

That brand of basketball, as forged by coach Stephanie White the past two seasons, revolves around defense and the offense it ignites. They had it working in Game 1, winning at Minnesota, but dropped Games 2 and 3 to a Lynx franchise that won four WNBA titles during Maya Moore’s time, between 2011-17, and is now poised to challenge for another with a burgeoning powerhouse built around another UConn icon, Napheesa Collier, who scored 29 points Sunday.

“Our offense was able to lift us up last game,” Collier said. “If that’s not working we have to rely on our defense and that hasn’t been been good the last two games. So we have to go home and defend our home court. We’re both playing for our lives, so we have to play with that level of intensity.”

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During the 40-game regular season, squeezed tightly into stretches before and after the Olympics break, the Lynx won two more than the Sun, 30 wins to 28, and those two games mean the difference between this Game 5 being at Mohegan Sun Arena or in Minnesota’s Target Center. Both teams have won on the road in the series, and won in plenty of unfriendly arenas during the season, but whatever the advantages of playing at home, the Lynx will have them this time. The Sun won a decisive first-round game there a year ago, as Minnesota was just getting things together.

“The atmosphere there the first two games was absolutely insane, so I can imagine what it will be like for a Game 5,” Bonner said, “and we all know that. They’re great fans, they’re championship fans, they’ve won multiple championships and they’re hungry for another one, so it’s going to be crazy, but we’ve been there, thank goodness. We know what it’s going to be like.”

The New York Liberty, the No.1 seed, punched their ticket for the last round with a win at Vegas on Sunday. One of The W’s flagship franchises, New York has yet to take home the championship. There is that, and the city’s long championship drought in all sports that the Liberty, Yankees and Mets are trying to end this month.

The Sun may not be considered a WNBA flagship, but despite inherent disadvantages, it has been one of the league’s most consistently successful franchises. It just hasn’t broken through to the top.

A matchup of Collier and Liberty star Breanna Stewart, teammates on UConn’s last championship team, would be something for UConn fans. A New York vs. Connecticut final would be something else.

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All this will be part of the reality for a matter-of-fact team when the Sun get to Minneapolis on Tuesday; its veterans, particularly DeWanna Bonner, won’t let the moment overwhelm them. They may win, may lose, but they can promise the moment won’t be too big. They’ve been there, and done that. Now they have shrug off the pressure, shut out the outside noise, go there and do it one more time.

“We’ll be prepared to handle that,” Bonner said. “We’ve just got to stay locked in. Yeah, it’s an elimination game, but it’s basketball and at the end of that buzzer, you’re going to either win or lose. So there is no reason to panic or freak out. If you want it too bad, you’re pressing, but at the end of the day it’s basketball and at the end of that, we go on about our lives.”