Alyssa Thomas racked up another triple-double on Sunday in Los Angeles.
“Honestly, I didn’t know and I didn’t care,” she said after the Connecticut Sun beat the Sparks 79-67. “It was more about the win. We didn’t play our best basketball today and it took all the way until the fourth quarter for us to kind of get control of it.”
Connecticut will try to carry over that fourth-quarter form into a rematch Tuesday night at Los Angeles, where it will shoot for a sweep of the teams’ two-game series.
Thomas finished with 12 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds as the Sun improved to 25-10. They trailed going into the fourth quarter but unleashed a 24-9 run that allowed them to stay a game behind Minnesota for the second-best record in the WNBA.
Brionna Jones scored a team-high 21 points to go along with nine rebounds, continuing a recent stretch of good play. Jones has scored at least 17 points in each of the last four games. She has tallied at least 20 in three of those games.
“I think we’re doing a better job of finding her in scoring position,” Connecticut coach Stephanie White said.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles (7-28) has nothing to play for but pride and individual stats. Owners of the league’s worst record, the Sparks are guaranteed to finish with no worse than a top-three lottery pick and have the best odds to wind up with the No. 1 pick.
The good news for Los Angeles is that it’ has found a potential cornerstone in rookie forward Rickea Jackson, who scored a game-high 23 points Sunday and added a career-high three steals.
“I just continue to trust in my teammates,” Jackson said. “They were getting me the ball in my spots. I feel like I was being aggressive as well. We just got to put together four quarters.”
The Sun have won the teams’ first three matchups this year by an average of 9.7 points per game.
–Field Level Media
