Sun ‘fail to compete,’ lose Game 3 to Lynx 90-81

Oct. 4—MOHEGAN — The great unwritten script of sports frequently captivates us. And it confounds us, too, like perhaps trying to explain how a team two wins away from the WNBA Finals, in front of a ravenous home crowd, pulls a no-show.

This is what befell the Connecticut Sun on Friday night, inviting Alyssa Thomas and coach Stephanie White to question the Sun’s collective competitive level after a 90-81 loss to Minnesota in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals at Mohegan Sun Arena.

“You’ve certainly got to compete, right?” White said. “You’ve got to be ready to compete. I feel like we’re two pretty evenly matched teams. I feel like when we play at our best on the defensive end of the floor, which we’ve seen for most of the year … this was a little bit of an anomaly. When we play our best, we make things difficult. We didn’t make things difficult.”

Thomas: “We didn’t compete. Nobody’s gonna hand you anything, and if we’re not gonna come out there and compete, this is what happens.”

The Sun’s season hangs upon the outcome of Sunday’s Game 4. Tip time is 5 p.m.

How bad was it? The Sun, despite a crowd of 8,268 in full throat, never gave their fans reason to blow the roof off the building, failing to get any closer than seven in the entire second half. They allowed the Lynx to shoot 57 percent from the field and assembled a clinking, clanking, collection of threes, missing 17 of their 20 attempts.

Former UConn great Napheesa Collier, the best player on the floor by several miles, finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds for Minnesota. Former Sun guard Courtney Williams had 16 with eight assists, while Kayla McBride had 13 and Bridget Carleton 12.

Bri Jones led the Sun with 21 on 8 of 13 shooting. The starting backcourt of Marina Mabrey and DiJonai Carrington combined to shoot 12 for 35. Mabrey went 1 for 11 from three-point range.

“It’s a tough one for us,” White said. “They got to do pretty much whatever they wanted to on the offensive end of the floor. We didn’t do a good enough job as coaches preparing us to play. That’s on us. We got outplayed. We got out executed. We got out coached. And you’re playing with an opportunity to go to the WNBA Finals. We’ve got an opportunity still in front of us. Our back is against the wall, and we know what we have to do.”

That includes solving a Lynx team that was picked ninth in the league to begin the season. A team whose players and coaches feel underestimated is a win away from the Finals.

“I think the chip (on our shoulder) is there. They had us ninth in the beginning of the season, so that chip never went away,” Williams said. “We don’t really care. We block out the noise. We know what we can do.”

Collier: “I think it’s kind of nice at this point. You keep underestimating us, and we keep just doing what we’re doing. Coming in and hitting teams in the face because they have the same mindset. I think we proved who we are all season, and we have so much belief in ourselves. We know what we’re capable of, and that’s what we’re trying to go out and show every night.”

The Sun, who now must win another game on the road, play for the season Sunday.

“Obviously, closing out is a hard thing to do,” Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said. “So I think, like we’ve done all season, being great defensively and rebounding the basketball allows us to play offensively where we want to play. Connecticut is going to try to do the exact same thing.”

m.dimauro@theday.com