Dom Amore: Connecticut Sun season sets, but leaves fierce pride behind

UNCASVILLE – Alyssa Thomas hit the floor hard under the New York basket, writhing and twisting in pain as play went on – too long, actually – with her down.

Eventually, athletic trainer Nicole Alexander, Brionna Jones, in civilian clothes, and teammates Natisha Heideman and DeWanner Bonner came out to help her up, and she was helped off the court, cringing and wincing.

“You want to go to war for someone like that,” Dijonai Carrington said. “She’s put us on her back all year.”

Alyssa Thomas, in the midst of yet another triple-double, being Alyssa Thomas, was back on the bench a few minutes later and, with less than three minutes off the clock, she was back on the floor to complete the game, which the Liberty won 87-84 to clinch a spot in the WNBA Finals.

“Before I knew it she was back on the bench,” White said, “and I got her back in there.”

So ended A.T.’s remarkable season, 23 media voters would say it was an MVP season, and so went the Connecticut Sun. So much grit and toughness. Just fierce. Thomas didn’t want to talk about whatever her injury was, just the season she and her team just completed.

Thomas had 17 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists, her 11th career triple double, seventh this season, counting regular season and playoffs.

“I had a season you’ve never seen in this league and probably won’t see again – unless I do it,” Thomas said. “Let’s be reasonable. Triple-doubles. Most double-doubles in league history. Nobody can take away the fact I’ll always be in the record books.”

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She was just as fiercely, and unabashedly proud of the Sun.

“Preseason, we were picked seventh or eighth,” Thomas said. “And to finish third, losing a huge piece on Bri Jones (to an Achilles injury), to fight like we did in the semis, we have a ton to be proud of. We could have easily given up. … I love playing with people that everyone counts out. These are the people I would go to war with every single night.”

The Liberty (32-8) were built to go to the Finals, and they were too much, earning the flagship franchise’s first trip since 2002, but not by too much. Game 4 was a thriller, decided by fouls and free throws at the buzzer. The Sun had a chance to tie on the last possession, but couldn’t get off a quality shot.

Breanna Stewart had 27 points, nine rebounds, Betnijah Laney had 21 points and Jonquel Jones had 25 points, 15 rebounds and four blocks, a key block late in the first half as New York erased a 10-point Sun lead, and a steal late in the game to help ice it.

The super teams assembled were all they were built and cracked up to be, which is not always the case. New York’s combination of UConn’s Stewart, the MVP, who scored 25 on Sunday, Jones, Sabrina Ionescu, Courtney Vandersloot and the very underrated Laney was too much. They beat the Sun four times in the regular season, and after a slip-up in Game 1 of the semis, steamrolled to the Finals.

The Liberty had too many weapons, but the rebuilding, retooling, re-loading year for the Connecticut Sun was pretty darn good. The little franchise that could, still can.

“This is a group that coming into the year, with Jones, was counted out,” White said. Then Breezy goes down. How do we regroup, reorganize? … They competed at a high level, just willed themselves and our team to do things I’ve never seen.”

The championship window former coach Curt Miller often talked about may have closed, as far as the departing players and coaches were concerned, but combination of new and old players forced it back open.

And if an era of super teams is upon the WNBA, the Sun established they still have a place in the league’s future.

So much of this was in doubt a year ago, when the Sun lost to Vegas in the Finals and then broke up, with Miller and Jasmine Thomas heading to Los Angeles, Jonquel Jones to New York.

Few observers saw White, the consensus coach of the year, and the new-look Sun so far down the path to upsetting the New York-Vegas narrative. Around Thomas and Bonner, players acquired to complement them, like Rebecca Allen, Ty Harris and UConn’s Tiffany Hayes and Olivia Nelson-Ododa. White and her staffed developed players and molded a team from the talent GM Darius Taylor astutely provided.

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“We had a lot of pieces that proved why they are in this league and a lot of names people don’t talk about,” Thomas said. “And look what we accomplished.”

Maybe the best players, the most desired free agents are apt to look to bigger markets, more glamorous settings and skylines, but Connecticut showed with knowledgeable, efficient team building, the Sun could remain competitive.

“We’re just a tough team,” Thomas said. “No matter what, I think it’s our identity, we don’t care what people are talking about or who we’re playing against. We’re going to play our basketball, no matter what. We do us, and we have fun doing it.”

The Sun, 27-13, were the third best team in the league, made it to the playoffs for the seventh year in a row, the 18th time in their history. The long-held franchise dream of bring the trophy back to the Mohegan Sun remains elusive, but it hasn’t disappeared from view.

The Liberty’s elite players, perhaps, get the benefits that go with it. They went to the line for 25 free throws to Connecticut’s eight, as Thomas pointed out. The Sun, with their own unique, elite player, grinded to the very end. White said maybe Thomas just doesn’t look the part of a superstar, unless you look at the stuffed stat sheet. Every night.

“At the end of the day it’s about what you get done, and the way you get it done,” White said. “And she gets all those specialty stats, scoring, rebounding and assists, every night, all of them. You wouldn’t ask a player about her not getting respect, because they respect her. I still believe she is the most underrated super star in our game.”