The Chicago Sky won’t get the chance to defend their championship in the WNBA Finals after they lost Game 5 of their semifinal series to the Connecticut Sun 72-63 on Thursday at Wintrust Arena.
The Sky took a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter and led 63-54 with 4:46 to play before the Sun went on an 18-0 run to end the game.
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Jonquel Jones’ three-point play put the Sun ahead 66-63 with two minutes left — their first lead since the second quarter.
The Sky had a chance to answer, but Courtney Vandersloot bounced a bad interior pass off the backboard, keying Courtney Williams’ pull-up jumper on the other end.
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Vandersloot and Allie Quigley missed 3-pointers in the final minute, and DeWanna Bonner made four free throws to ice it.
“It’s tough,” Sky coach James Wade said. “It’s probably one of the biggest disappointments that I’ve had professionally. … It’s hard to put into words right now.
“This is going to hurt me for a long time. Felt I could’ve done a better job of getting them a bucket. I couldn’t get them one.”
While defensive deficiencies in the paint led to the Sky’s 104-80 blowout loss in Game 4, it was cold shooting for stretches that led to this elimination loss.
The Sky missed eight of their first 10 shots in the fourth, opening the door for the Sun to come back.
“Defense — that’s what we’ve been hanging our hat on all year,” Bonner said.
The Sky got off to a ragged start in the first quarter, too, but slogged their way back into the lead in the second and found a defensive spark in the third, pushing the advantage to 10 points.
Quigley had two steals in the final minute of the third, the second setting up Emma Meesseman’s jumper to make it 58-48 and raise the decibel level at Wintrust.
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However, it was shooting that ultimately told the story for the Sky. They shot 34.3% from the field in Game 5 and 32% from 3-point range.
Kahleah Copper led the Sky with a game-high 22 points, but Candace Parker scored only seven on 2-of-7 shooting and Quigley was 1 of 12 (0 of 6 on 3s) for three points.
All five Sun starters scored in double figures, led by Bonner and Jones with 15 each.
Sun coach Curt Miller came into the close-out game hoping his team again would be “relentless” in the paint like it was in Game 4, when the Sun put up a playoff-record 66 points in the paint.
“We had an exceptional amount of finishing,” he said before Game 5. “We were relentless to get the ball on the paint both off of the catch but also off the dribble. And we had our best cutting night on and off the ball.”
Asked to pinpoint the Sky’s deficiency in Game 4, Wade said before Thursday’s game: “It was an everything problem. It was a party the last time.
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“It wasn’t just rotations. Part of it was being in the right spot individually player (to) player. … If you’re not in the right spot, then it’s going to cause over-rotations and then the next player is going to get open.”
Miller noted how the Sun (45.7 points in the paint per game) and Sky (40.9) led the league in that category and figured it would play a large role in the decisive Game 5.
“We both thrive there,” Miller said. “With the talented shooters that they have across the board, you forget that everything they do is through the paint. And so we knew coming into this series — I talked about it from day one — (that) we’re going to look back at this series and the team that has the most success in the paint is going to win.”
