The Washington Mystics Powered Past The Connecticut Sun In Game 1 Of The WNBA Finals

The WNBA Finals tipped off on Sunday and it was an exciting matchup between the Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun. There’s so much star power in this series with players like Elena Delle Donne, Courtney Williams, Jonquel Jones, and Kristi Tolliver to name a few, as both teams have deep rosters of talent, which is why the rolled through their semifinals series to reach the Finals.

One thing that this series is going to have plenty of is offense. The Sun are going to shoot and they will do it frequently. The Mystics aren’t afraid to light it up from deep either and they have the league’s MVP in Delle Donne, who became the first in WNBA history to post a 50/40/90 season. Early on the Mystics proved they couldn’t just keep up with the Sun in scoring, but outpace them as well. They took a big lead early and ended the first half with 55 points. It was a lot of turning defense into offense and when you shoot the way the Mystics were you’re typically going to win a lot of games.

As the third quarter continued it initially felt like it was going to be more of the same. Washington was rolling on offense and the Sun were struggling answer back. You should never call anything that early a dagger, but when Natasha Cloud and Kristi Tolliver combined for back-to-back threes that felt like all she wrote.

It was a trend that had been continuing all game long. The Sun hit a shot, the Mystics hit a bigger one, the Sun turned the ball over, and the Mystics made them pay for it. It was the story of the afternoon in Washington until, all of a sudden, the Mystics stopped hitting shots. They forced bad looks in the paint and the Suns quickly found their groove. The Sun are capable of getting hot in a hurry and steadily that big lead the Mystics had built began to evaporate.

Soon, it was a five-point game and the Sun appeared in full control.

Then Elena Delle Donne happened. She finished with 22 points and began a run to put the Sun back down for good.

After Delle Donne’s bucket pushed the Sun to arm’s length again, Ariel Atkins, who had 22 points in the game, buried a corner three to effectively put an end to the comeback bid. These two shots began a 9-0 run for the Mystics that the Sun weren’t able to recover from.

The Mystics might have pulled away from Game 1 late, but the run made by the Sun in the third quarter and early fourth show there is something there. The Sun can shoot with the best of them and if the Mystics are gonna get in scoring races with them then Connecticut will be more than happy to oblige. When Game 1 finishes 95-86 you know there’s going to be a lot of offense in this entire series. These Finals are going to be high scoring, intense, and the best basketball the WNBA has to offer.