Former UConn star Asjha Jones, who scored 10 points vs. LA, is rounding into form after offseason Achilles surgery.
DeLisha Milton-Jones led the way for Los Angeles with 20 points. Point guard Ticha Penicheiro, who led the Sacramento Monarchs over the Sun in the 2005 WNBA Finals, continued to play Connecticut nemisis with a 17-point, seven-assist performance, while Kristie Oliver added 15 points, Noelle Quinn chipped in with 14, and Tina Thompson had 11 for the Sparks, who won just their second road game of the season.
Renee Montgomery led all Connecticut scorers for the second straight game with 14 points. Tan White added 13, while Sandrine Gruda chipped in with 12, and Kelsey Griffin and Asjha Jones added 10 points apiece for the Sun, who have lost two straight games—both at home—and five of their last seven.
Not coincidentally, it was the second straight sub-par performance from Tina Charles, who may be starting to feel the wear-and-tear of non-stop basketball dating back to the beginning of last season with UConn. Charles followed up a game in which she was held without a rebound in the first half in a 82-74 overtime loss to the New York Liberty last Tuesday with a nine-point, nine-rebound effort vs. the Sparks—who own the second-worst record in the league. Both games fell far off the lofty standard Charles has set early in her professional career: She ranks 11th in the WNBA in scoring with a 15.7 points per game average, and leads the league in rebounding with 11.9 boards per contest.
To call Connecticut’s defensive effort around the perimeter on Saturday weak is an understatement of mythic proportions. Going into the game, the Sparks were one of the WNBA's worst three-point shooting teams, putting down just 33.7 percent of their shots beyond the arc. But on Saturday, LA set a new franchise record with 15 treys against the Sun, draining 52 percent of their shots (15-for-29) from downtown.
Jones, a 33.5 percent three-point shooter over the course of her 11-year career, looked like the second coming of Pistol Pete on Saturday, knocking down four of the seven shots she launched from downtown. Teammates Kristi Tolliver (4-for-8) and Noelle Quinn (3-for-4) joined Jones on the Los Angeles Laser Squad.
“We talked about how when [Kristi] Toliver came in the game, trying to make her be a dribbler and not a three-point shooter,” said Mike Thibault, the befuddled head coach of the Sun, after the game. “Obviously we did a wonderful job in that since they each made four.”
“Who really shoots 52 percent from the three point line? They did tonight,” added former UConn star Asjha Jones, who is finally rounding into form after Achilles heel surgery in February. “They had us scrambling. We were rotating and rotating, but they were all making their threes tonight. They were getting looks and even when we had hands in their faces, they still made them. We should take responsibility for letting them get hot in the beginning and once a team gets hot, it’s hard to slow them down in this league.”
But then, a philosophical Thibault explained that from his vantage point, Saturday night’s game could be stripped down to its essence: a classic case of youth vs. experience—and experience won, hands down.
“They have really smart players: [Ticha] Penicheiro, Tina Thompson, Delisha Milton, Noelle Quinn, Marie Ferdinand,” continued Thibault. “They’ve been around. They’re smart. And they’re teaching people like Toliver and [Lindsay] Wisdom-Hylton how to be smart. That’s the best I’ve seen them play offensively in quite awhile. I don’t know if that’s them or us, but I’ll give them credit. You’ve got to make shots. I don’t care how open you are, you’ve got to make that many threes. They shot it with confidence.”
Connecticut must now prepare for its two biggest games of the year—against the third-place Washington Mystics, who lead the Sun by 1.5 games, on Tuesday night, and the second-place Atlanta Dream, who are two games ahead of the Sun (but just one in the loss column) on Friday night. Both games are at the Mohegan Sun Arena, and both tip-off at 7:30 p.m.
