Quick Three: Sun 83 Sky 75
Chicago keeps touch with the league-leaders for all forty minutes but fails to avenge their previous defeat to Connecticut.
The Sky dropped the final game of their Commissioner’s Cup campaign on Wednesday night—falling to the 11-1 Sun for the second time in the opening eleven games of their season. While Chicago trailed for much of the game, there is some obvious positives to take from tonight, and it seems likely that Teresa Weatherspoon will view tonight’s game—in spite of its flaws—as a step in the right direction for her team. Let’s start by diving into what went well before touching on the Sky’s struggles against the always impressive Sun.
1. Sky Show Persistence Once Again
Any newly hired coach at basically every level of basketball will claim their team is going to play hard and never give up. And when those words come out of the mouth of one of the sport’s most relentless competitors of all time, they hold a little extra weight. Even then, there was still no guarantee the 2024 Sky would live up to the promises their coach made in the preseason. Irrespective of team personnel or character, most young teams who are still learning will reach a point where it becomes easy to quit. If there’s one thing we’ve seen from this Sky team through 11 games, it’s that, when they reach that point, they’ll continue on. At times in the fourth, the Sky trailed by double-digits against the league’s best team (so far) with two more games coming in the next 96 or so hours. All of the signs were there—a white flag moment had arrived. Instead, the Sky planted their flag, continued to push and clawed their way as close as 79-75 inside the final half minute when Diamond DeShields hit a three to cap a 17-9 run.
Now, in the years to come, there will be no time for moral victories, tight battles or near comebacks to matter, but the Sky haven’t reached that stage yet. With an entirely new team and a key injury to one of their veterans already absorbed, the Sky’s new collective is very much in its infancy. And with that infancy, comes an understanding that this roster has flaws, lacks certain needed personnel and simply isn’t as good as a legit-WNBA contender like the Sun. But, one adjustment that won’t be needed—at least from the core group of personnel—is in character. Irrespective of the challenges faced, the key players have continued to show up and fight through the entirety of the forty minutes. It sounds corny now, but if the Sky do find a way to win another WNBA championship, these traits will be essential. All of the skill-based or personnel-driven improvements are also very necessary to reach that level, but Weatherspoon and GM Jeff Pagliocca can feel confident they’re investing their developmental resources in the correct assets given the early returns.
2. Angel Reese’s Best WNBA Game Yet
If there’s one thing Reese can do, it’s take on feedback and improve. Much was made of her post-game chat with Tina Charles on Saturday, and it looked like some of the advice Charles gave her was already being applied tonight. To make Reese’s rookie season very simple, the key is patience. Not just for fans (both for and against her) that sometimes heap too much pressure on the rookie but for Reese herself. When she takes time to find the angle she wants, particularly on putback attempts after an offensive board, Reese’s success rate is considerably higher. With time, there’s lots more about her offensive game that coaches and armchair experts alike will want to correct, but a lot of the ability she needs to be a useful WNBA scorer is already showing in her current game. And tonight, in many ways, was the perfect example of that.
Because while Reese finished with 20 points on 8/10 FG, it didn’t feel like the Sky had to work the ball to her persistently to generate that production. If Chicago can build a team strong enough for her to operate in that type of “supporting” role nightly, Reese’s skills become exponentially more dangerous. In this game, the Sky got her touches in traditional post-up situations, but she also scored on the break (her leak outs all season have been timely), via second-chance looks (her shiftiness getting into position without being boxed out has also been a consistent trend) and at the line (where she’s a solid 73%). If she does each of those things successfully twice a game, that’s already 12 points in the box score. Add in anything she can score via traditional post-ups and you quickly end up with 20+ point performances like tonight. Looking—once again—to the long term, the key will be finding the offensive firepower needed for those 20-point nights to be a luxury not a necessity. If Reese eventually develops into a dominant first-option offensively, that’s great news for the Sky, but her all-around output means such a transformation is not needed for her to be a well-above average starter in the W.
3. Sun’s Film Study Pays Off
While both teams made improvements from their previous meeting back in May, it was evident that coach of the year Stephanie White and her veteran crew got the most out of their film study. In short, the Sun saw what we’re all aware of: the Sky are not an elite three-point shooting team and can go long stretches without taking (much less making) a three. As a result, there seemed to be a pretty big emphasis on denying any opportunities for Chicago ball handlers to turn the corner and head downhill with momentum. Of course, lots of teams would love to defend like this. But, when you have the versatility of defensive options that White has, closing off the paint for long stretches is a reality—not a dream. Dijonai Carrington and Alyssa Thomas were fantastic in bodying up to the Sky’s perimeter players and making their first move be side-to-side rather than forward. By the time that forward momentum is lost, the Sky started to run out of options quickly. If the ball-handler picked up their dribble, Connecticut was ready to swarm and—if they didn’t—their backline numbers were already getting organized in the paint.
The result was a lot of possessions that died with the ball handler desperate for help on the perimeter or with a forced entry pass that was easy to intercept or difficult for the post player to catch and convert. When the guards did break past the first line of pressure, the back line was equally difficult to score past—thanks to both Brionna Jones and Olivia Nelson-Ododa’s defensive impact. As if their size at the rim wasn’t enough, the aforementioned length of Carrington and Thomas meant that Mabrey, in particular, likely still had her original defender on her hip when she got to the paint—with her efficiency on shots in the lane (1/6 FG) reflecting the difficulty of those looks. Given the Sky’s lack of outside shooting ability, there’s little they can do to easily break down a defense like Connecticut’s, but they can take some solace in the fact that few (if any) teams can truly replicate the Sun’s blend of athletic ability and team coordination. The Sky can also reflect positively on the fact that four different players hit threes tonight. They’re still a ways away from being a high-volume or efficiency team from long-range, but the confidence DeShields (who made 2) and Harrison (who made her first of the season) should gain from seeing shots fall can only be a positive.