With their sights set on winning the first championship in franchise history, the Connecticut Sun begin their journey in the WNBA Playoffs on Thursday night.
The third-seeded Sun (25-11) will face the sixth-seeded Dallas Wings (18-18) in Game 1 of their first round series at 8 p.m. ET at Mohegan Sun Arena. The game will air on ESPNU and NBA TV.
The two teams faced off three times in the regular season, with Dallas holding a 2-1 edge in the series. But a lot has changed for both sides since those matchups. The Courant spoke with Peter Warren, the Dallas Wings beat reporter for the Dallas Morning News, to get an updated scouting report on the Wings and what to expect in the first round.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
This is the first season the Wings have finished at or above .500 since the Tulsa Shock moved to Texas and were rebranded. What do you think has allowed them to make the jump this year?
Peter Warren: “I think part of it is just maturity and just getting older as a group. Nine of the 12 players on the team remain from the previous season. The three who [aren’t back] are Teaira McCowan — their only offseason acquisition coming from Indiana— and two rookies. So there was a lot of continuity just from the group having an extra year. Getting that experience in the playoffs last year also provided a lot of confidence and is something that Coach [Vickie] Johnson and the team has expressed made them feel like they belonged. Because heading into the Chicago game last year, they felt just sort of like pretenders. But they entered this year with confidence that they can make the jump, they can get to this .500 record, get into the playoffs, win a game, maybe win a series. And it tookprobably more twists and turns and they would have liked, but they’ve ended the season sort of on a good note that their confidence shaped into actually winning games.”
You mentioned just even getting to the playoffs last year has given the Wings confidence. Obviously the Wings and that group of players have a lot less experience in the postseason than the Sun, who have consistently been there. How do you see that playing into this series?
Warren: “It’s definitely a fascinating aspect. The Wings have combined to play — on the roster, including Arike [Ogunbowale], Satou [Sabally] — 18 total playoff games between the 12 players. And I’m pretty sure there are multiple players on the Sun who have that many by themselves. So it’s going to be a fascinating dynamic to see how that veteran presence plays out. I think an interesting wildcard is that Vickie Johnson played in 53 playoff games, two assistants on staff both have two championships each, and they’ve both played over 20 playoff games. So it’s an interesting dynamic where Dallas’ coaching staff is [made up of] not only experienced players but experienced playoff winners. But especially in that first game, I think it’ll be crucial to see how Dallas, with a rookie point guard, adjusts to the pace and aggression of a playoff game. Those first five to 10 minutes will really be huge seeing whether Dallas will sink or swim against a team like you mentioned in Connecticut where his is not their first rodeo, this is their 10th rodeo and they have big expectations on them as well.”
Having Arike Ogunbowale out for this first round due to injury changes things a lot. How have you seen Dallas adapt to playing without her?
Warren: “Yeah, obviously Arike is an enigma, especially on offense where she can go off for 30-plus points or she can have a fairly inefficient game that can sort of negatively trickle down on the team. But the big thing without her has been there has been more ball movement on offense. Arike can go into iso-mode, probably more at times than some people would like, so the ball moves a lot — maybe not better, but there’s a lot more movement without her on the floor. That is something that opposing coaches have mentioned in their pregame pressers. But the other big difference compared to those first few matchups is just Teaira McCowan (6-foot-7) in the middle.
Her arriving late for the season from Europe, where she played great, really impacted his team in more ways than one. When your big offseason acquisition comes into the team late, and doesn’t know the system, it takes a while for her to learn, especially someone as cerebral as Teaira who’s trying to get all the small things right. But you saw it in that third game against the Sun right before the All-Star break, her putting it together. And now the team’s offense, especially in the playoffs I imagine, will be based around that inside-out, getting the ball to Teaira almost every time on the block. The matchup with Jonquel, with Bri, with maybe Alyssa a little bit is fascinating in my mind to really see how the series goes.”
The emergence of McCowan is something I was going to ask you about. After watching how she’s been playing in recent weeks, what do you expect from the battle in the post in this series?
Warren: “We’ve seen it after the All-Star break, not just learning the system and gaining the trust of her teammates, but also just having things slow down for her. That was one thing Teaira and Vickie talked about … Teaira’s a very cerebral player, she was trying to learn all these tendencies, learn all these intricate details that come over time, playing with somebody for months and months, she was trying to learn in two weeks, in three weeks. It was just affecting her game and she was thinking too much on the court. And Johnson has said, ‘Stop doing that, you do you,’ and it’s worked wonders and you can see that when she gets the ball on the block, she’s looking to make a play, she’s not afraid. Even on defense, having that 6-foot-7 presence in the middle adds something, especially compared to what was there before, which was good defense but not the imposing presence of McCowan.
From a pure just bigs perspective, I mean Bri Jones and Jonquel Jones, there’s no better duo in the league. Teaira would really dominate at times against the second-string bigs, who just either aren’t skilled enough or aren’t big enough to handle her in the post. That’s not going to be the case in this series. Teaira is going to have to play a lot of minutes and she’s gonna have to battle for all those minutes with no stops. And especially with Jonquel and Bri Jones playing two different styles, one obviously can stretch out to three, and Teaira’s not the greatest on the perimeter, it’ll be an interesting matchup to see. One of them will guard Teaira, but it’ll be interesting see how Dallas potentially matches up with Kayla [Thornton] and Awak [Kuier] and other people like that.”
Satou Sabally has been out since July 12 with an ankle injury. Have the Wings given any update on whether they think she might return at all for the playoffs?
Warren: “So Satou has been day-to-day for probably a month now, maybe more like three weeks. It’s just one of those things where they are saying she’s getting better, she’s feeling good. She didn’t travel [for the regular season finale]. I think if the team had ended the season at home, we might have seen her in the regular season finale or in the second-to-last game, just because I know she had been ramping it up and she’s actually going in shootarounds and in practice, she’s dressing and doing some participation. I think that’s really the big question for Dallas. They call [Satou] a unicorn. She adds a dynamic player — most likely she’ll be on the bench for Dallas if she does play — that is the ball handler, creator without Arike they have been missing. So it is definitely one thing, you know, if she’s able to play, which honestly I have no idea, she’s the X-Factor. But if she doesn’t play that’s just a huge loss for Dallas. Having their two most recent All-Stars not play is not exactly a recipe for success.”
What do you think are the biggest weaknesses for this Wings team that you’ve seen other teams be able to exploit throughout the season?
Warren: “It’s been a problem for most of the year, even with Arike, just sort of closing games in not just a strong way, but in a way that you can emphatically close the door on a victory. Dallas, other than this most recent win streak (they won five straight games from July 30-Aug. 8), has struggled to focus over 40 minutes, and a lot of that would manifest in the final five minutes of the game. Even the games they won, they would sometimes struggle down the stretch. A game like Las Vegas where they won, they sort of lucked out with A’ja Wilson missing a bunny at the end. Especially without Arike, who is obviously a great iso [player] and someone you can trust when you need to get a bucket. Allisha Gray is great, she’s not the best at iso and creating for herself. Marina is very good at that, but she’s not as good as Arike. Teaira is obviously good, but theoretically it’ll be possessions down the stretch where Jonquel and Bri or Alyssa is fronting and they can’t get the ball in to her.
They’ve struggled, especially in those situations, to find a good look. It’s not always been the case, if they call timeout Johnson has had a couple of great calls out of timeouts that have really worked. But especially with [Veronica] Burton or Ty Harris on the floor, young point guards who are still learning how to run a team, it can be a struggle. And it can be a real concern for Dallas where if you’re up eight with five minutes to go and next thing you know maybe [DeWanna] Bonner hits a couple of threes or Jonquel hits a couple threes, it’s a two-point game, you worry that they’re not gonna know how to adjust and stay collected and focused instead of rushing into a bad shot or having a bad possession. Because it’s happened more than their fair share.”
