The Connecticut Sun’s first two games without Brionna Jones were successful. They defeated the Minnesota Lynx 89-68 on June 22 and the Chicago Sky 96-72 on June 25. They then even had a pretty good showing against the New York Liberty on June 27, with Alyssa Thomas recording a triple-double and DiJonai Carrington going for a career-high 23 points in an 89-81 loss.
Then came the juggernaut that is the Las Vegas Aces this past Saturday. Vegas went on a 19-0 run from five seconds remaining in the second to 4:36 remaining in the third to build a 28-point lead, led by at least 18 the rest of the way and won by 18. For the first time, it seemed like Jones’ absence really got to the Sun. They were not only overmatched by the Aces on paper; they seemed to lack their usual mental energy, something that had always seemed to allow them to overachieve and beat more talented teams in the past.
Connecticut (12-5, third place) will look to bounce back mentally Thursday night when it hosts the Seattle Storm (4-12, 11th place) at 7 p.m. ET. Thursday morning, the Sun updated their injury report to include Carrington, who will be out with a non-COVID illness. She is obviously an important puzzle piece who comes off the bench and averages 8.8 points per game. It will be up to stars…
