Making sense of Connecticut Sun’s back-to-back losses to Seattle Storm, Las Vegas Aces after historic start

For the first ten minutes of Sunday’s game against the Seattle Storm, the Connecticut Sun looked like world beaters. Coming off a brutal loss to the Las Vegas Aces two days earlier, the Sun held the Storm’s entire starting lineup to two points or fewer and led in nearly every statistical category after the opening quarter at Climate Pledge Arena.

But things went rapidly downhill in the second quarter  as the Sun struggled to put the ball in the net, allowing a 17-3 run over nearly five minutes without a field goal. The run gave Seattle a 34-31 halftime lead that extended in the third. Connecticut trailed by as few as five points in the fourth quarter, but the Storm ended the game on a 13-6 run and came out with a comfortable 72-61 win. 

“This is a long season, so it happens. No one expects to be perfect every game,” Sun superstar Alyssa Thomas said. “You win some, you lose some, and this will be a great learning experience. We’ll have a lot of video to watch, but we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be a lot better. We can’t come out and play the way we did.”

The performance against Seattle showed that Connecticut’s previous two losses were more than unlucky one-offs. Instead, it appears Sun have traded one problem for another: Gone are the sluggish starts they constantly struggled with at the beginning of the season, replaced by hot first quarters gone to waste. Brionna Jones put up 11 first-quarter points against Las Vegas, then was held to just seven the rest of the game. Thomas logged eight in in the first at Seattle but finished with 14 points after going scoreless for the entire second quarter and all but 10 seconds of the third.

Connecticut also hasn’t had a truly close matchup since winning four of its first nine by four or less, and in both of last week’s losses it struggled to get back into the game after falling into a hole.

The Sun thrive in ugly, low-scoring games because of their defense, constructed around Thomas, who is one of the most elite defensive players in the league. They lead the WNBA in fewest points allowed per game, giving up just 71.7, and they also rank first in opponent fast-break points and points off turnovers. Limiting offensive production so much meant Connecticut could play from behind or give up a sloppy quarter against the middle tier of the league, but those letdowns have cost them against more talented squads.

“I thought our defense was good enough to give us a chance, but our offense really struggled today,” Sun coach Stephanie White said after the loss in Seattle. “We struggled against their length, against their multiple coverages. We had missed opportunities at the rim and missed opportunities and the free throw line, and when you’re playing really good teams, those things hurt you … When we had them in the half court for the most part we did a really good job defensively, but they were able to get loose in transition because of some of our missed bunnies.”

The Sun held the Storm, who average 82.4 points per game, to a season-low 72 in the loss Sunday, but Seattle was able to limit Connecticut to its own season low of 61 points, shooting 37.3% from the field and 14.3% on 3-pointers. DeWanna Bonner, who ranks No. 5 all-time in career points, is the closest thing the Sun have to at-will scorer, but they lack a consistent second option when her hand isn’t hot. Bonner often benefits from defensive matchups with guards that can’t handle her size at 6-foot-4, but she shot a combined 6-for-26 for 15 points against the Aces and the Storm. Seattle switched up its starting lineup to give Bonner a longer matchup with 6-2 guard Jordan Horston, and the Aces could bring two-time All-Defensive selection Alysha Clark off the bench to complement the size of superstar A’ja Wilson and center Kiah Stokes.

Tyasha Harris, stepping into the starting lineup for the first time this season, has the potential to be that go-to offensive option for the Sun, but she simply doesn’t take the volume of shots needed to produce at the rate of a Wilson or Seattle’s Jewell Loyd. Harris is the only player on the roster shooting above 33% from 3-point range hitting 40%, but she averages fewer field goal attempts per game than every Sun starter except Thomas — who can’t play with a regular shooting motion due to torn labrum in both shoulders.

Connecticut prides itself as a perceived underdog, capable of outworking the star-studded rosters that dominate the conversation in bigger markets. But time after time, the league’s super teams find an edge over the Sun. Their first loss of the season came against the New York Liberty, who eliminated the Sun from the 2023 WNBA Playoffs after signing former MVPs Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart in free agency last year. Against Las Vegas on Friday, there was palpable frustration from the Sun players every time Wilson hit another basket in the second half en route to her double-double of 26 points and 16 rebounds, invoking deja vu of her performances in Aces’ 2022 WNBA Finals win over Connecticut. The Storm are just the latest iteration, after signing 2016 league MVP Nneka Ogwumike and six-time All-Star Skylar Diggins-Smith this offseason.

“I don’t think at any point there’s a given team that’s going to dominate and lead the way the way that we’ve seen in the past, and I think that’s one of the exciting things about the league,” White said. “(Seattle is) a really good team. They’ve been excellent on the defensive end and make it tough on you. That’s one of the things we talk about offensively is how do we help our team find the right reads and find the next play based on the coverages they’re making … For us, it’s about evaluating the film and going back to try to simplify it a little bit for our players.”