June 16th, 2019: Seattle at Connecticut

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A finishing kick in the fourth quarter propelled Connecticut to a 81-67 win over the Seattle Storm. Alyssa Thomas had a team-high 20 points for the Sun, with Jonquel Jones adding 13 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists. Natasha Howard had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Storm.

For a lack of weather jokes, drama, karma, the unit divide, and looking gift horses in the mouth, join your intrepid and tired blogger after the jump.

Happy Father's Day, fellow travelers! It's game day at Mohegan Sun Arena, as Connecticut hosts Seattle.

Our day started out quite adventurously, as ticket sales for the bus were held up by someone claiming the coordinator had attempted to defraud him of his money. Three rounds of cops later, and with the timely assistance of a key witness, it was dealt with, but we almost didn't make the bus because of him. Jerk. I hope every bus he attempts to get on is sold out and that if he does make it to a casino they clean him out.

(We talked our way onto the bus and gave the guide a big tip; she moved us up closer to the front of the bus for the ride back. We gave our match play coupons to a fellow rider and he bought us donuts. Truly, this is the strangest timeline.)

Mohegan is popping today, and I'm trying to figure out a way to strike up a conversation with the kid a few seats over who's also playing Pokémon Go without being exceptionally creepy.

FEED THE BEAST

Interesting anthem, half vocal and half saxophone instrumental. I liked her sax playing better than her voice.

Shoutout to the fan in the Natasha Howard jersey. You're a real one.

That third quarter run by Seattle made things more interesting than they really had to be, but Alyssa Thomas was a wrecking ball in the fourth quarter, and that plus defense was enough to push down the understrength Storm.

Sue Bird traveled with the team, but it looks like Jordin Canada did not.

Courtney Paris got some run in the first half, and her size was effective against Kristine Anigwe, who did not seem ready to handle quite that much defender. But she didn't play in the second half, as Seattle stuck to a slightly tighter rotation. Crystal Langhorne seems to have convinced herself she has a long-range shot. Based on today's game, this is a supposition completely without merit. She did play excellent defense on Anigwe. You could almost see her baiting the rookie into thinking she was open and then SURPRISE Terp inna face.

I honestly don't know if you really need both Sami Whitcomb and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis on the same roster. They both essentially do one thing- shoot from the perimeter. KML occasionally considers the possibility of shooting inside, and Whitcomb can pass a little better, but they both look to shoot the long ball as their first, second, and third options. I do like Whitcomb's footwork to ensure that she's behind the line. But when rosters are as tight as they are in the WNBA, having two dedicated shooters seems like much of a muchness, and it seems like Whitcomb brings more to the floor than KML does. Shavonte Zellous's midrange jumper was deadly, and she was a steady hand bringing the ball up the floor. She was much of the reason why they repeatedly came back on Connecticut. She just refused to lose for as long as she possibly could.

Natasha Howard was fantastic in the paint. She threw up one-handed push shots that went in whenever she wanted them to. She was ferocious on the glass. She's just so springy and uses her length really well. Mercedes Russell used her height well in the early going, but as the game wore on, she seemed to have more trouble holding on to her rebounds, instead tipping them out to the perimeter, and Connecticut was ready to pounce on those opportunities. Alysha Clark brought the defense, as she does.

I'm looking at the box score right now, and it still doesn't feel like Jewell Loyd hit as many of the shots she took as she did, even with hard evidence in front of my face. I understand that a lot of the burden is falling on her with no Bird and no Stewart, but she seemed to be settling for a lot of difficult shots from low-percentage areas of the floor when there were available teammates. (I mean, also credit to the Sun defense for making those shots difficult, but they got help.) (Side note: I thought it was interesting that she was introduced with her hometown, not as being from Notre Dame. An FU at McGraw, or some kind of technicality?) Blake Dietrick is... well, I guess she was there? She brought the ball up when she was in the game, and showed some good presence of mind on the edges of the court, but she was an inoffensive non-entity otherwise. I don't know if that's the right dynamic for this team right now. I know this is out of necessity with all the injuries, but if Canada is out for any length of time and Seattle does want to try and win games, they might need a different style of point guard.

I hope Brionna Jones isn't hurt. She never took the jacket off, even when Coach Miller was getting Bridget Carleton up in the last thirty seconds (she never got to come into the game because there wasn't a stoppage, and he eventually called her and Morgan Tuck back to the bench).

I was not expecting this kind of defense out of Bria Holmes! She showed really good hands against the ballhandler in her minutes. I mostly know her from her shooting, so this was a pleasant surprise. Morgan Tuck looked a little overmatched. She gave good effort, but even against this motley Seattle crew she didn't seem to have a good match-up. Kristine Anigwe took the minutes that normally would go to Brionna Jones and acquitted herself very well on the glass and in the paint. There's definitely still an adjustment period she has to go through against larger and faster defenders, but it was good to see her get a chance to show she can contribute at the W level.

Rachel Banham's shot just wasn't falling. She took a couple that were not the best shots she could have taken, but some of them were just bad luck. I'll live with it. Layshia Clarendon drove hard and ran a solid offense, although she and Jasmine Thomas were both uncharacteristically unaware of the shot clock in this game.

Connecticut's bench really needs to step its game up if the Sun are going to succeed. Someone's got to step up and be a true sixth woman. Right now, the drop-off is painfully apparent.

Bad day for Jasmine Thomas, and it's unusual to see Connecticut manage to power through one of those. She took a lot of contested shots and a lot of forced shots late in the clock. Her passing was off target. She persevered, and there were a couple of plays to Alyssa Thomas that were beautiful, but this was not her day. Courtney Williams has to learn to take some contact. I know she's small and I know she doesn't like contact, but it's part of the game and she's going to have to deal with it. I love her hops, and her drive-and-dish game was on point.

Alyssa Thomas looked at that game in the fourth quarter and decided that she was going to take over. She bulled her way into the paint and got either buckets, free throws, or both. I'm going to stick with my favorite descriptor of her as a little bit terrifying and a little bit awesome, and I'm going to resist the urge to start singing about how she came in like a wrecking ball. I know y'all are going to do it for me. ;) Shekinna Stricklen hit shots that weren't threes! My heart almost stopped from the shock of it. There was one I really liked, where it looked like she was using her shoulders to get position against the defense, and a little part of my mind was chanting "YES!" over and over again in joy. She got buckets at the right time. I mean, there's no wrong time to get a basket, but hers always seemed to be cutting off a Seattle run or kicking off a Sun one. Jonquel Jones does such amazing work on the glass with those long arms and her long fingers and her ability to control the ball mid-air until such time as she can bring it down and truly lay claim to it. She had herself a day.

Connecticut's starters are so good and usually work so well together. There were some really weird stretches of bad passing that worry me, though.

I know we were playing much more of a perimeter game, but I side-eye the foul differential in the second and third quarters so hard that I think I sprained my cornea.

Seattle has a lot of fight in them, and that will serve them well when Bird comes back, as long as there isn't too much deference to her when she does.

We were in the lucky section! Except that it's "selfies" only, except that it's not even a selfie because one of the staff members takes the picture with your phone for you. How is that a selfie? Ugh. I'd rather spork my eyeballs out than do photos, so we just awkwardly said "good game" to Court and Kristine as we left. Judging from the fact that maybe 10 people from our section stayed, we weren't the only ones less than enthused about the prospect. At least make autographs an option, for heaven's sake, instead of just setting up a black curtain and having done with it.

As always, I worry about the sustainability of this Sun team, but they're fun to watch when they're good.