5 Things You Need to Know for the Lynx-Sun Matchup on ESPN2

Tue, May 23, 2017, 12:14 AM
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Lindsey Horsting

The Lynx have started their season 3-0, and are carrying a 20-game win streak in the month of May since 2012. Connecticut is coming off two, hard-fought, close games that resulted in losses and still looking to work out some early season kinks.

Here are five things you need to know about their prime-time matchup (8PM ET, ESPN2). BUY TICKETS 

1. Sylvia Fowles

Sylvia Fowles has earned Player of the Week honors for her standout performances in the first week of the season. She is averaging a double-double so far this season with 21.7 points and 10 rebounds per game. She is a traditional center and likes to work in the paint, opening the floor for the guards and giving them room to work.

“That’s great for us, because teams have to pay attention to her,” Maya Moore said.

Fowles has added many dimensions to the Lynx on offense as she excels when running pick and rolls, and defensively, she’s been contributing by blocking and rebounding shots.

“That’s one reason my assists are going up, is because I’m getting it to an open post player who’s by the rim,” Moore said. “She gives us energy, she wants to get and one’s, she’s starting to finish through the contact more and more.”

2. Jonquel Jones

Jonquel Jones has been voted the player most likely to have a breakout season as per the WNBA GM survey results. Jones has been off to a hot start averaging 13.5 points and 16 rebounds per game. Rebounding has been Jones’ bread and butter since she was in college at Clemson and George Washington, but her offensive game has grown since last season which she attributes to getting more reps and playing overseas in Korea during the offseason.

“I think it helped out a lot, being able to make strong finishes in the post,” Jones said. “I think I struggled with that last season coming out of the college game and coming into the league where everybody’s big, everybody’s skilled, everybody’s talented.”

“I definitely got in the weight room a lot, it’s physical play so I think Korea helped out a lot in terms of that,” she said.

She’s tough to defend because she plays an inside-outside game, and Curt Miller gives her the freedom to play both roles.

“I’m happy that they trust me to be able to go out and make plays, I just want to be able to help my team on the defensive end.” Jones said.

The Fowles-Jones matchup will be fun to watch.

“She’s doing great now, ya’ll haven’t seen nothing yet,” her teammate Alex Bentley said.

3. The Lynx early season success starts in training camp

Maya Moore credits the professionalism in training camp with consistent early season success. The squad takes the short time they have together before the season very seriously.

“I think you’re seeing an overflow in the quality of training camp that we have,” Moore said. “We’re just excited to have some games and so we show that when we’re playing on the court with our energy and focus on execution from the start.”

Impressive would be an understatement when talking about their May winning streak that sits at 20. (5-0 in 2012, 6-0 in 2014, 6-0 in 2016, 3-0 in 2017) The team is happy about the success, but they’re continually fine tuning their craft.

“We’re 3-0, but compared to some of our other starts in other years, we’re not quite as sharp in who we want to be yet,” Moore said. “We’ve been winning games, but I still there’s a long way for us to go, cleaning up things defensively and be even more efficient offensively.”

The Lynx are always striving, never fully satisfied and that’s what makes them so great.

4. Connecticut is relentless on both ends of the floor

Minnesota had six regular season losses last year and two of those were to Connecticut. The Sun are tough and scrappy, if they are struggling on offense they will pick up their defense to try to get back in the game. If their shots don’t fall, Jones will be there to clean up the boards.

Renee Montgomery mentioned teams like this are tough to play against because they will always try to find a way to win, it’s important to come prepared from the tip.

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re up ten or down ten, they are just going to play hard at all times,” Montgomery said. “You can’t go on a run and expect them to fold, they’re always going to keep fighting.”

5. The game will come down to the last three minutes

Curt Miller tells his Sun team this all the time. The Sun have had a tough start to the season, losing a pair of close games, and Alex Bentley hinted at the fact that they didn’t execute or makes stops down the stretch.

“We’ve been beating ourselves the last couple games, honestly,” she said. “Things we could have executed better, we didn’t, stops we could’ve gotten, we didn’t.”

They’ve been in close games, and given that tomorrow could be another one, they have learned from the last two games and are using that going forward. They beat the Lynx twice last season so they know what it takes to beat this team.

“We’re confident going into tomorrow as well, our coaching staff is amazing. All we have to do is execute, focus on the game plan and if we do that as we did last year, I’m pretty confident in our team being able to get a ‘W’,” Bentley said.