It’s a time-honored basketball cliche for good reason:
Defense wins championships.
The Connecticut Sun had the best defense in the WNBA this season and it showed Sunday when they frustrated a top-three offense — Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever — throughout their playoff opener. Once the Sun found their offensive rhythm this game became a blowout.
The Sun won 93-69 To take a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-three. Connecticut can close the series out and keep Indiana from having another home game with a win on Wednesday.
Caitlin Clark, welcome to playoff basketball — she had a bruise under her eye after being poked there in the first quarter, but added that’s not why her shot was off. And it was off. Clark started 0-of-8 from 3, not hitting her first from beyond the arc until midway through the third quarter, and she finished with 11 points on 4-of-17 shooting, including 2-of-13 from 3.
“I got some really good looks. I felt I had three pretty wide-open 3s in the first half that like you usually make,” Clark said postgame. “So that’s tough, but I felt like I battled and tried my best.”
Credit the Sun’s DeWanna Bonner and teammates for taking away Clark’s flow — and it wasn’t just Clark. The entire Fever team struggled to find a rhythm against the Sun, shooting 6-of-28 (21.4%) from 3 for the game.
Taking a team out of their flow and making the game a little ugly is what good defenses do. It’s what Connecticut did Sunday.
Two other things got going for the Suns. One was their All-NBA two-way force Alyssa Thomas recording her fourth career triple-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds and 13 assists.
The other thing that changed the game came when Tyasha Harris had to leave the game in the first quarter after rolling her ankle on a closeout. That put more pressure on reserve Marina Maybrey to step up — and did she ever, scoring 27, the most points ever off the bench in a WNBA playoff game.
The game was close early on. The Sun led after the first quarter 23-20 largely because of the six offensive boards they grabbed, giving them plenty of second-chance points. Well, that and Bonner, who scored 10 in the first quarter including a couple of 3s.
The game started to turn when the Sun went on a 9-0 run late in the first half and by the half, had stretched their lead out to eight, 46-38. Connecticut turned the tables on the Fever by running every chance they got, which not only got buckets but led to fouls.
In the third, Clark finally started to find a rhythm, but so did Connectict’s Mabrey — a mid-season trade acquisition from Chicago — who had 11 points in the quarter. The Sun pushed the lead out to 15 by the end of the third. Then came the fourth and the Fever looked like what they were, the less experienced team in big moments. The Sun put their foot down on the gas and this became a blowout.
Kelsey Mitchell led the Fever with 21 points, while Aliyah Boston showed off her improved skill on the short roll and finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Connecticut’s defense will be there Wednesday for Game 2, if the Fever can’t find a way to adapt and adjust, their season will be over.
In other action on the first day of the WNBA playoffs:
New York 83, Atlanta 69: Top seed New York started the game 6-of-6 from the floor, raced out to a first quarter 15-point lead and never looked back against an overmatched Atlanta squad in their first playoff game in the series.
Brianna Stewart had her usual monster game with 20 points and 10 rebounds, but it was rookie Leonie Fiebich who led New York with 21 points.
Atlanta’s leading scorer this season Rhyne Howard started the game 1-of-9 from the floor, struggling against the Liberty defense, but still finished with a team-high 14 points. New York can close out the series at home in Game 2.