By: Nina Samone
On Thursday night at the Wintrust Arena, a winner-takes-all Game 5 ended up in victory for the Connecticut Sun who defeated the defending champions – Chicago Sky – with a score of 72-63.
Thursday night’s game was won by No.3 seeded Connecticut after a 22-2 fourth-quarter run gave them the lead and victory.
Connecticut will face the No.1 seeded Las Vegas Aces this Sunday at 3pm – both titles will be hoping to earn their first WNBA Championship title.
For the third time in four seasons, there will be a brand-new WNBA champion.
It had appeared that the No. 2 seeded Sky had the game under control for most of the competition – they even had a lead as high as 11 with just over seven minutes remaining in the contest.
A huge push by Connecticut helped them jump ahead and even hold Chicago scoreless for the final 4:46 minutes of the contest.
A huge shift in momentum started with Connecticut’s DeWanna Bonner’s and-1, which she converted to a three-point play, cutting the Sky’s lead further.
At the 2:00 minute mark, another and-1 – this time by Jonquel Jones, allowed Connecticut to take the lead.
“I think that was our moment to settle down a little bit,” Bonner said. “We got fired up… We looked up when that happened, and it was like, ‘there is a lot of time left.’ That’s all the fire we needed.”
Despite committing 23 turnovers, Connecticut pushes forward and advances to their first WNBA Finals since 2019, where they lost to the Washington Mystics in 5.
They currently lead the WNBA in most playoff wins without a title (36) but are hoping to change that during the final stretch of the WNBA season this year.
Sources:
Philippou, Alexa. September 2022. ESPN. “Connecticut Sun oust defending champ Chicago Sky in 5 games to reach WNBA Finals.” <https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/34552948/connecticut-sun-oust-defending-champ-chicago-sky-5-games-reach-wnba-finals>
