{"id":115287,"date":"2025-09-02T22:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T22:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115287\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T22:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T22:50:07","slug":"sky-sun-aiming-to-avoid-ignominy-of-last-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/115287\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky, Sun aiming to avoid ignominy of last place"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Sky<\/a> and Connecticut Sun<\/a> are part of a three-team tussle to avoid the WNBA cellar.<\/p>\n

To Connecticut coach Rachid Meziane, the quest to keep away from that dubious honor hinges on making opponents uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

“It’s about toughness,” Meziane said, “and for sure you can work on that in practice, but it starts with just taking some pride on defense.”<\/p>\n

Meziane wants the visiting Sun (10-30) to improve on D when they visit the Sky (9-30) on Wednesday. He felt Connecticut “stopped playing defense in the last quarter” of Monday’s 93-76 home loss to Atlanta, “and we gave up the game.”<\/p>\n

Trailing by just a point entering the fourth quarter, the Sun faded.<\/p>\n

“We stayed behind, we didn’t put pressure on the passers, on the ball, so a small advantage becomes a big advantage,” Meziane said. “We just went after the ball, and they got what they wanted and found what they wanted.”<\/p>\n

Tina Charles led Connecticut with 22 points on her bobblehead day. Rookie Leila Lacan followed with 17 points for her third double-figure scoring effort in the past four games.<\/p>\n

Chicago, which is tied with Dallas for the fewest victories in the WNBA, has lost four straight and 17 of 19.<\/p>\n

Struggles down the stretch plagued the Sky in their most recent game, too. Angel Reese swished a pair of free throws to bring the Sky within five points of host Seattle with 9:36 remaining in Saturday’s game, but Chicago came no closer in a 79-69 loss.<\/p>\n

Reese had 20 points and 10 rebounds for her fifth straight double-double, but Michaela Onyenwere (11 points) was the only other Sky player in double figures.<\/p>\n

Turnovers remained an issue for Chicago, which totaled 22.<\/p>\n

“It’s really hard to beat good teams when you’re giving those possessions away,” Sky coach Tyler Marsh said.<\/p>\n

Connecticut would claim the season series with a win. The host Sun lost by 12 on June 15 before earning a 71-62 home win on Aug. 13 and a 94-84 road victory on Aug. 23.<\/p>\n

In that most recent game, Charles posted her 200th career double-double with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Bria Hartley — recently lost to a season-ending meniscus tear — scored 23 points and Marina Mabrey had 20. Kia Nurse sparked Chicago with 19 points off the bench.<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2025 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Sky and Connecticut Sun are part of a three-team tussle to avoid the WNBA cellar. To…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,726,3458,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-115287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-chicago-sky","11":"tag-connecticut-sun","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}