MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Courtney Williams scored 17 points and Alanna Smith had 15 points to help the Lynx offset an off night for star Napheesa Collier and beat the Connecticut Sun 77-70 to even the best-of-five WNBA semifinal series at one game apiece on Tuesday.
Collier, who scored 80 points in the two-game sweep of Phoenix in the first round, was held to nine points on 3-for-14 shooting. She led the Lynx with 12 rebounds and five assists, content to let her supporting cast lead the charge past a feisty opponent.
“We’ve got to match their energy. First game, they was chirping and chatting so you have to give it back to ’em,” Williams said. “Playoff basketball, man.”
Alyssa Thomas had 18 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists for the Sun, who shot just 5 for 20 from 3-point range. DeWanna Bonner scored 17 points and Marina Mabrey added 15 points on 4-for-14 shooting after she had 20 points in the opener.
“We weren’t happy with how we approached the first game. I think we played OK, enough to only lose by 3. We knew that we had to take it to another level and we had to have each other’s backs,” said Smith, who played with Williams for Chicago last year.
Connecticut will host Game 3 on Friday and Game 4 on Sunday. Then Game 5, if necessary, would be in Minnesota on Oct. 8. New York leads defending champion Las Vegas 2-0 in the other semifinal series.
The Lynx never lost consecutive home games this season on their way to a 30-10 record for the No. 2 seed in the playoffs, and their 73-70 defeat in Game 1 clearly fueled a fierce follow-up in this persistently physical matchup that resembled football at times more than hoops.
Myisha Hines-Allen hit an off-balance bank shot from the corner to beat the halftime buzzer, giving the Lynx a 36-30 lead and some extra energy to take into the break.
“They were the aggressor tonight. They were aggressive on the defensive end. They were physical. They wouldn’t let us get into our offense. They responded to every run, ” Sun coach Stephanie White said.
Smith, the shot-blocking specialist who is on her fourth team in four seasons, has revitalized her career in Minnesota under coach Cheryl Reeve two years after being released by Indiana. She swished a 3-pointer early in the third quarter for a 41-30 lead that triggered a Connecticut timeout.
Williams had 11 points in the third for half of her team’s output, helping tilt the frustration more toward the Sun in the second half after the Lynx had their flustered moments earlier. Reeve won four WNBA titles with a legendary group that’s all gone. This is the first true playoff test for the current core.
“I believe to be successful you do have to experience adversity. You have to get through the adversity, go through it, go through the lumps, bumps, all of that to get through the promised land,” Reeve said. “That’s the only way. If it was easy everybody would be doing it.”
The two best defensive teams in the regular season — the Sun allowed an average of 73.6 points per game, the Lynx 75.6 — were on full display in a meat grinder of a first quarter in which the first 14 shots misfired and each side had two turnovers in less than four minutes.
Collier saw constant double-teams and started 1 for 6. The Sun did their best to not only deny the four-time All-Star her favorite spots on the floor but get under her skin, too. Mabrey applied some extra force at one point when she and Collier were scrapping for a loose ball near the paint, prompting a stare down between the two stars.
“It’s playoffs, so it’s going to be physical, it’s going to be dicey moments. It’s win or go home,” Bonner said. “Everybody wants it, so emotions are high. It’s just two competitive teams going after it.”
Later in the second quarter, Kayla McBride extended her forearm into Mabrey’s neck as she took a fast break to the basket. McBride was given a technical foul after the two former Notre Dame stars — they missed each other by two years — exchanged words and a bump on the way back.
McBride had 11 points for the Lynx to help lead them back from a 2-for-15 start from the field, even with Collier never finding a rhythm.
“We got into our switches. We tried to make catches difficult. We tried to make shots difficult. But certainly they showed as a team why they’ve been successful. They’re so balanced,” White said. “Yes, we were able to limit Phee, but they got off on the 3-point line and that’s something we have to remedy. We’ve got to keep them off the offensive glass.”
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball