Tina Charles followed up on her historic triple-double on Friday with her league-leading 21st double-double of the season—24 points, 15 boards—to lead the Connecticut Sun over the last-place Washington Mystics, 79-48, before 13,403 fans at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. Charles is now one Double-D shy of the league record she set last season en route to winning the WNBA Rookie of the Year Award.
Asjha Jones, who signed a three-year contract extenstion with the Sun on Friday, picked up her sixth double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds for Connecticut. Danielle McCray scored 15 points, and Renee Montgomery had six points and seven assists for the Sun, who improved to 20-12 and swept the season series from the Mystics, who fell to 6-26.
Monique Curry came off the bench to lead Washington in scoring with 13 points, while former Sun favorite DeMya Walker chipped in with seven points and four rebounds for the Mystics.
Jones brought her “A” game defensively, too, limiting Crystal Langhorne to just 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting—the fewest points scored by the Mystics’ All-Star forward since she scored nine points on June 16… also against the Sun. Jones’ defensive energy was contagious as Connecticut held Washington to season lows in points (48) and field-goal percentage (26.9). Both were season lows for Sun opponents as well. Connecticut also played a strong defensive game along the perimeter, holding the Mystics to abysmal 2-for-17 shooting (11.8 percent) from beyond the three-point arc.
“I was just doing my job. I want to be there for my team offensively and defensively,” said UConn’s all-time leading rebounder, who leads the WNBA in rebounding and is seventh in scoring. “My job is to get rebounds, and it leads to our transition and everything. So, I just go out there with the mindset just to try to get them all.''
After Connecticut won both the first and second periods by identical 21-12 margins, taking a 42-24 lead into the locker room at intermission, a Herculean effort by the Mystics was necessary to make this game competitive. None was forthcoming. The Sun outscored the Mystics 26-13 in the third period, taking a 31-point lead into the fourth quarter—garbage time, in other words.
The victory snapped a four-game losing streak on the road for the Sun, who were unable to gain ground on first place Indiana. The Fever who broke a three-game slide with an 88-80 win over the Chicago Sky in Rosemont, Ill., on Sunday. The Sun continue to trail the Fever by one-half game (one in the loss column).
Connecticut has three games remaining on its regular-season docket, while Indiana has only two. Crunching the numbers, that means that the Fever would need to lose two of their last three games (against Washington and Atlanta at home, and at New York) in order for the Sun to earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Should the Sun and Fever tie at season’s end, the first tiebreaker—head-to-head competition—goes to Indiana, which took the season series from Connecticut three games to two. If scenario unfolds, the Sun can point directly to a 69-58 loss to Indiana on July 28—one of only two losses suffered by the Sun at the Mohegan Sun Arena all season—as the reason.
Next up for the Sun is a trip to Atlanta where they will take on the fourth-place Dram on Friday before returning to the Mohegan Sun Arena to wrap up the regular season slate against the third place New York Liberty on Sunday. The Sun have already qualified for the playoffs—their first postseason appearance in three years. Playoff tickets are now on sale at Mohegan Sun Arena by clicking HERE.
Comments