Sun, Liberty had worst-case scenarios in Game 3s
In pivotal semifinals games, the Lynx and Aces grabbed momentum
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If you were to ask the Connecticut Sun and New York Liberty what they were trying to avoid in their respective Game 3s, the Sun would have said that they couldn’t let the Lynx get in rhythm offensively, and the Liberty would have said that they couldn’t let the Aces spark belief that they could pull off a historic comeback.
Both of those worst-case scenarios happened on Friday night.
In Minnesota’s 90-81 win over the Sun to take a 2-1 series lead, they shot 57.4% from the field, picked up 22 assists on 35 field goals and only turned the ball over 10 times. It was a divergence from the first two games, in which the Lynx scored 70 and 77 points on 43.3% shooting and had 28 total turnovers between the two games.
The other thing that nobody in Connecticut wanted to see: Napheesa Collier playing MVP-caliber basketball. Between Game 1 and Game 2, Collier only shot 10-for-30 and had five turnovers. Game 3 was a completely different story with Phee going off for 26 points on 11-for-19 from the field and only three shots were outside the paint.
The Lynx have been incredibly effective getting Phee into the paint by pulling opposing bigs away from the basket. They ran a tornado of on-ball screens when Courtney Williams had the ball in her hands, often causing the Sun to switch Alyssa Thomas or DeWanna Bonner onto the speedy guard. With Thomas and Bonner away from the bucket, Phee was able to cut or post up and drop her signature fadeaway into the basket without a ton of bodies around her.
Williams cooked those matchups as well. She got to the basket four times and made three shots and found a lot of space off the dribble from her typical midrange area, hitting four of her six shots between 15 feet and the 3-point line.
Minnesota’s strategy all year long has been to distribute their scoring all over the board with different players stepping up on a nightly basis. That happened in Game 3, with the bench contributing 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting with five assists.
The end result was the Lynx making 65.2% of their 2-point shots and the Sun’s head spinning. Cheryl Reeve’s team made one of the Sun’s best strengths, guarding the perimeter, more or less irrelevant. Connecticut was second best in the W in 3-point percentage allowed and the Lynx only shot 5-for-15 from deep, yet they completely dominated the game.
The Sun also have to be very worried that they do not have enough scoring, especially with guard Ty Harris limited by injury. Certainly sharpshooter Marina Mabrey won’t be going 1-for-11 from 3-point land again as she did in Game 3, but it was hardly just her shooting woes that cost Connecticut. In the first half they were only able to generate 13-for-30 shooting from inside the 3-point line. Despite the Lynx’s shortcomings in size, they haven’t allowed Thomas and Jones to dominate the paint. That doesn’t seem like a fluke because the Lynx were No. 1 during the regular season in 2-point percentage allowed.
If the Sun are going to still win this series, they might have to commit to defending the bucket and scramble to defend 3-pointers.
But the scoring issue might be tough to solve. The Sun’s main strategy during the season was to slow the game down and get to the free-throw line by pounding the paint. But in a series where the referees are allowing a lot of physical contact, that’s tough to lean on. Connecticut was only the eighth best 2-point shooting team and sixth best 3-point shooting team by percentage in the regular season.
Unless Harris can handle a bigger workload, there really isn’t another button to push for Stephanie White. There were lineup combinations where the Sun were putting Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Veronica Burton on the floor at the same time, making it nearly a 3-on-5 game offensively. Together the two bench players went 1-for-5 with two free-throws.
We know that a five-game series is never over until it’s over, especially with a team that has the talent of the Sun. Bonner and Mabrey are both capable of getting blazing hot, and Thomas is an all-world player who has caused all sorts of problems for the Lynx over the years. But what we saw on Friday night was that if the Lynx force the Sun to switch everything, they can create mismatches all over the floor and finish when they have opportunities. The Lynx’s best work might just be too good.
As far as the Liberty go, they appeared to have put Becky Hammon’s team on the ropes by going up two games in the series. The Aces’ head coach was wondering aloud if her team had too many off-court distractions and they played like they had run out of gas.
The first half of Game 3 looked like the Aces got an energy boost from the home crowd, getting up by three points at halftime. But the Liberty seemed to have survived Las Vegas’s best and figured to have a chance to close out the series in the second half. And then they melted.
New York scored six points in the third quarter and walked off the court looking like they had been hit by a truck the size of Mandalay Bay. Sabrina Ionescu’s hot shooting went ice cold and the Liberty were in a blender trying to deal with Chelsea Gray’s passing.
The concern here for New York isn’t so much strategic as about the mentality of both teams. The Aces are an incredibly resilient bunch, going back to last year when they closed out the Liberty in the Finals despite being short handed. Throughout this season they have had to fight through injuries, a short bench and inconsistency from some of their top players like Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young. Yet they still stand two games away from returning to the Finals.
This isn’t a team that is going to shrink, especially not with A’ja Wilson’s confidence and fire pushing the rest of the group. It has never felt like the Liberty have that type of leadership, even if they had talents that are in the same air as Wilson.
On the other hand, it may simply come down to Ionescu’s shooting and Jonquel Jones staying out of foul trouble. Before the loss on Friday, Ionescu was hitting 52.2% of her shots from the field and 42.4% from 3-point land. The last three games before Game 3 were over 50% shooting, which she had only done once for a three-game stretch this season. If she bounces back, then the Liberty will still be tough to come back against for an Aces team that allowed the third lowest 3-point percentage against this season.
Both series return Sunday. A quick turnaround may benefit Sandy Brondello’s team more than Stephanie White’s club. The Liberty have the horses to shoot their way into the Finals, even if Vegas puts up a fight. They still have the better regular season team and the deeper roster overall. The Sun have to make serious X’s and O’s adaptations quickly, which might not be easy with a single day off.
How both teams bounce back from rough nights will determine where these series go from here.
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Good analysis, but it might be a bit excessive to call the Aces’ victory a “worst-case scenario” for the Liberty. The Aces, despite their struggles this year, are still a very good team with, as you note, the best player in the league. It would have been unreasonable for the Liberty to think that they would sweep; one might have expected Las Vegas to win a game at home, and that’s all that they have done so far. And the Liberty can reasonably expect a much better performance from Ionescu.