The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

Already the most successful postseason run of her WNBA career after a single series, Jonquel Jones and the Connecticut Sun took game one of their semi-finals matchup.

The Sun have been on the losing end of single game elimination scenarios at the hands of the Phoenix Mercury in the second round, but this season finished as a No.2 overall seed and advanced to the semi-finals with a double bye.

The Sun took game one Tuesday night with game two scheduled for 6:30pm tonight local time. Connecticut finished 23-11 in the regular season but several WNBA pundits did not consider them as a legitimate WNBA title contender because of a perceived lack of superstars.

"Team basketball makes us successful. We move the ball really well, we play together and we try to make sure everybody is involved," Jones said. "We understood early in the year, a lot of people had us as the 'X' on their calendar because we were at the top of the league, so we just have to come out and be ready to play every game."

Connecticut has used the predictions of pundits as motivation for the postseason, making promos using the Tweets of ''experts'' saying they don't have a superstar and picking against them in the series. The team sold t-shirts in the arena Tuesday that read DisrespeCT, with the CT highlighted.

Jones discussed the difference in the team's approach this season on the Winsider Show, after they secured the byes through to the semi-finals and the opportunity to play in a series.

"We don't want to be in that position, we just have to be focused and learn from our past mistakes," she said. "Were just focusing on ourselves. Putting some new sets in, making sure we're crisp in the set we already do just a lot of sharpness and attention to detail.

"Playing our brand of basketball, taking care of things on the defensive side, which allows us to push the ball and attack and get in transition, playing at our tempo and once we do those things, I think we will be successful. It was huge for us to be in this position and sit back to see who we are playing and how we plan to attack them. It's also great to be a series to know that if we let one slip it's not the end of our season, it's just one game in the series."

Connecticut has won 24 games this season, the most since 2012, which also happens to be the last time the franchise was in the conference semi-finals.

The team lost in the conference finals that year and has had just two playoff games since, the aforementioned losses to Phoenix. Los Angeles won two out of three from the Sun in the regular season, but fall to 1-2 in Connecticut.

The rivalry between the Sun and the Sparks intensified after Connecticut made arguably the biggest transaction of the WNBA offseason which lead to an increased role for Jones.

The Sun traded former No.1 overall pick and All-Star forward Chiney Ogwumike to the Sparks for a 2020 first-round pick.

When Ogumike was injured for the entire 2017 season, Jones posted a breakout season, but was relegated to a reserve role in 2018 once she returned to the floor. Ogwumike was booed loudly when the lineups were announced and each time she touched the ball.

With her increased role this season, Jones has embraced leadership and the national spotlight. "It's been a natural progression. A lot of times you go overseas and you don't really get to work on your game too much but I've been put in situations where coaches have been really smart and I've just been learning a lot from them," she said.

"It's been a rite of passage, the team talked to me about taking more of a leadership role and I'm the type that's more likely to lead by example rather than be in someone's face but at the end of the day I know that if I do say something everybody is receptive and willing to listen."

In the other semi-final, the Washington Mystics defeated the Las Vegas Aces 97-95 in game one of their best-of-five series. "There's a lot of people that have allowed me to be here," Jones said. " My coaches, my parents, my family. If I don't give it my all then I'm letting them down."