Sparks 92, Sun 88: It shouldn't, but this one hurt to lose

In the grand scheme of life, or even the 2025 WNBA season, the Sun’s 92-88 loss to the Sparks Sunday won’t long be remembered, and won’t be a factor in whether Connecticut makes the playoffs or not, but dammit, the Sun had a chance to win this one. A good chance. But between the layups conceded in the first half and the inability to get a defensive rebound in the second half, it slipped away.

Which is not to say it was a bad performance, which made it even more frustrating. Saniya Rivers joined Paige Buckers, Sonia Cintron, Kiki Iriafen, and teammate Aneesah Morrow as the only 2025 draft picks to hit 20 points in a regular season game, and those first three names just got named All-Stars already. 


And Bria Hartley’s 25 points were just two off her career-high that she sent in the Wubble in 2020 for Phoenix (two of her teammates that day were her recent best friends Skylar Diggins and Sophie Cunningham), not bad for someone whose career looked finished before she signed with Connecticut earlier in the season.


But losing sucks, it really does. Unfortunately, Tina Charles looked out of gas, Olivia Nelson-Ododa struggled and to say she didn’t get a good whistle might be an understatement. And the Sun had cut Kariata Diaby and apparently Rachid Meziane doesn’t have confidence in Raya Marshall to play meaningful minutes at the moment (more on personnel decisions in the game later).


The Sun also don’t have Kelsey Plum, who was able to take over for the most part late and put them away. So it’s on to the Caitlin Clark circus Tuesday at TD Garden and then the All-Star break with a record of 3-18, but Connecticut has still yet to beat a team with a winning record this season, and it’s frustrating.


What else did we see on a Sunday that the Sun waived Haley Peters and Jaelyn Brown?:


 

  1. The Sun should have been up by more at the half  - The Sun played its best offensive first half of the season, and looked darn good on that end, leading by as much as eight in the second quarter. But they couldn’t and didn’t stop the Sparks much either as Dearica Hamby and Rickea Jackson didn’t have to make a shot outside two feet, such a stark contrast from the two Seattle games earlier in the week. The result was Los Angeles shooting 16-for-26 from two in the first half and it being a 49-47 lead for the Sun instead of one that should have been much bigger. If Connecticut wants to improve long-term, it must take care of the little things like that.

  2. More end of game confusion - The Sun were shorthanded after cutting Brown and Peters and hopefully will fill those spots with a couple of young players during the All-Star break, so that made things tough, but again Meziane and his team looked a bit baffled down the stretch. First, to not have Jacy Sheldon in the game when the team has to score quickly at the end of the game seems like malpractice. And even though Laila Lacan got a great steal off Plum in the closing seconds, letting that much time run down four doesn’t make any sense. We hope they’ll get better at such stuff with more close games, but it wasn’t pretty Sunday.

  3. Lots of games are hard for Tina Charles -  I mentioned how banged up Charles looked Friday night after logging 35 more minutes, and she got 34 more on Sunday, but it was a slog, as Charles finished with just 9 points and 7 rebounds on 3-for-10 shooting, and just did not look great on defense, either, as Azura Stevens and Hamby combined for 11 offensive rebounds by themselves. Charles is likely going to try to fight her way through all this, but she needs the All-Star break more than anyone right now.


Player of the game:  Saniya Rivers - She gets the nod barely over Hartley because she went 8-for-11 from the field and got three more steals, pushing her into the top five in the WNBA, somewhere where she might stay for years to come in that category. She added six rebounds, and as always, was such a joy to watch, a shining light for sure in this losing season.


Inside the numbers : 22 -  Number of days until the next road game for the Sun (Tues., Aug. 5 at Phoenix). Obviously, the All-Star break is in there as well, but it’s a chance to post some wins because there are a lot of road games down the stretch. 


Under the radar: For whatever reason, probably because it was a matchup of teams at the bottom of the standings, the atmosphere just wasn’t there in Los Angeles Sunday, and that probably led to the lack of defense in the first half. For whatever reason, Nelson-Ododa felt like she needed to chance Dearica Hamby out near the three-point line (Azura Stevens did make the Sun pay with 5 three-pointers) and simple shot fakes just opened up the lane at will in the first half. Also, for whatever reason the recovery from help was ridiculously slow, giving Stevens and others wide open looks. It was just a tough defensive performance to watch in the first half.


Quotable:  “We did a great job on the offensive end. We scored 88 points, everybody was hitting shots. We were getting everyone involved and playing very unselfish. But on defense, we have to slow them down because it does us no good if we’re going to score all those baskets, but give up the same amount or more. So we just have to be more focused on defense.” - Saniya Rivers


Next up: Tuesday vs. Indiana, 8 p.m. EDT (TD Garden, Boston)



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