MINNEAPOLIS -- As she entered the postgame news conference, Connecticut Sun standout Marina Mabrey grabbed two packs of popcorn from a nearby table and a couple of sodas from a refrigerator after she'd scored 20 points and made six 3-pointers in her team's 73-70 road win over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 1 of their WNBA semifinal matchup Sunday.
"And a Coke Zero, too?" Alyssa Thomas joked with her teammate after a game that wasn't decided until the final seconds and featured 13 lead changes and eight ties.
The Connecticut Sun had earned the snacks and the praise, even though it's hard to come by at times for the league's top defensive team. With their disciplined style and reliance on paint production, the Sun weren't always included in the highlight reels of the league's best plays and players this season.
Sunday's win over the hottest team in the WNBA since the Olympics break, however, proved that the Sun are worthy of the league's top stage.
"It's not unfamiliar to us," said Thomas, who finished one assist shy of a triple-double (17 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists), about her team being overlooked. "I mean, I think it happens to us each and every playoffs, but honestly, we don't care. We know what we've done all season. We know how we're playing. We know what we're capable of. And it doesn't change anything. We're going to go out there and compete the same way each and every night."
In the Sun's first-round matchup against the Indiana Fever, Caitlin Clark drew the bulk of the national attention, even though the Sun outscored their opponents 180-150 in a two-game sweep.
Entering Sunday's game, the Sun were the underdogs against the Lynx, despite winning two of their three regular-season matchups against them this season. But the Sun captured the early momentum by holding a Minnesota squad that had registered a WNBA best 101.5 PPG in the first round of the playoffs to just 16 points in the first quarter.
In a matchup that featured the two best defensive squads in the league, both teams were held to a 41% clip from the field. But Thomas made big plays late in the game, DeWanna Bonner helped her team corral Napheesa Collier (19 points, 7-for-19) after her 80-point barrage over the past two playoff games, and Mabrey kept shooting. It was a formula for a win and a statement about their status in the hunt for the title.
"That's what they brought me here to do," Mabrey said after the game. "So, I'm going to get out there and shoot the ball."
Following a Sunday announcement, Cheryl Reeve was given the league's coach of the year and executive of the year awards, and Collier was awarded the defensive player of the year trophy, both by commissioner Cathy Engelbert, in separate ceremonies.
Although Collier failed to extend the record-breaking run (she was the first player in league history to score 35-plus points in back to back playoff games) that she'd enjoyed in her team's win over the Phoenix Mercury in the opening round, she had the ball in her hands in the final seconds Sunday but missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have tied the game.
"I mean, she's going to keep attacking you," Thomas said ofCollier. "She moves around a lot. They play five out [on the perimeter] and it's not easy when you're helping people, but it was a team effort. Coming into this series, she was hot, really hot. And I think we did a great job."
Last year, the Sun beat the Lynx in three games in the first round of the 2023 playoffs. On Sunday, they won their third game of the season against Minnesota and their fifth in their past seven matchups. It appears the Sun have found a formula to stifle the Lynx -- all four games this year have been decided by five points or less -- and that formula could lead the Sun to the WNBA Finals if it continues to work.
"They're not an easy team," Thomas said. "But we're going to guard them with the best of them. We try to make everything hard for them."