BOSTON — Brionna Jones dived on the floor late in the fourth quarter of Tuesday night’s contest against the Los Angeles Sparks and wrestled the ball away from Li Yueru. With the Connecticut Sun down two points, Jones managed to bounce the ball to teammate Ty Harris, who flew down the floor and attempted a layup over her defender. Harris missed, but teammate Alyssa Thomas corralled the offensive board, put the ball back up for the basket and drew the foul.
The crowd erupted, and Thomas’ free throw pushed the Sun ahead for good. The cheers only grew in fervor as Connecticut made hustle play after hustle play on defense and ended the evening on a 14-2 run to secure a 69-61 win.
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“Beat L.A.” chants echoed throughout the arena as the Sun pulled away, and boos joyously ensued after Sparks coach Curt Miller was ejected 90 seconds before the final buzzer.
In those final minutes, it was easy to forget the Sun were playing in another state, some 100 miles away from their home arena.
A sellout crowd of 19,125 convened at TD Garden, home to the Celtics and Bruins, as the Sun and Sparks played in the first WNBA game in Boston. It marked the third-highest-attended WNBA game in this record-breaking, momentum-shifting season, as well as the highest-attended matchup in Sun franchise history.
“It felt great,” guard DiJonai Carrington said. “It felt like what every night should feel like.”
Added Sun coach Stephanie White: “I’m really thankful. Our team and our players, they deserve this, and they got an opportunity to experience it. We’ve experienced it sometimes on the road, but not 19,000 for a home game, and it was just a lot of fun.”
The game, which was announced in December, provided an opportunity for the Uncasville, Connecticut-based Sun to expand their footprint to another part of New England. Connecticut has been one of the league’s most consistent teams in recent years, making the semifinals of the playoffs each of the past five seasons, despite being based in a smaller market.
But Boston was the place to be in the WNBA on Tuesday night. The franchise announced the sellout Friday. The team held multiple youth and fan events in the days leading up to the game. Tuesday morning, fans stopped DeWanna Bonner and Thomas as they walked around the city and wished them good luck. A block party outside the Garden was bustling hours before tipoff. Celtics stars Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum sat courtside for the game.
“People didn’t get here at halftime,” said Carrington, who led all scorers with 19 points. “They were here two hours before the game, excited, ready. … I definitely hope this isn’t the last time that there’s a women’s game here, especially for our team.”
Added Thomas: “I’ve been in Connecticut for 11 years, and we have a great fan base there. But at the same time, you see the opportunity of what possibly could be.”
The Sun brought their home court from Uncasville while playing under the Garden’s array of Boston championship banners. The Sun, who have made the WNBA Finals twice in the past five years but still are searching for their first championship, are hoping to hang one of their own after this season.
“All the sports teams here win championships, so hopefully that’ll rub off on us, and we can get one in October,” Carrington said.
The second-place Sun led by as many as 11 points but had a difficult time putting away the 11th-place Sparks, who used a late run to jump ahead by four with 4:15 to play.
That’s when Connecticut — which shot a paltry 38.4% from the floor — put its foot on the gas defensively, using that energy to score in transition and rattle off 14 unanswered points. The Sparks ultimately allowed 20 Sun points off 22 turnovers.
“There were lulls for us offensively where we weren’t scoring, but the crowd never was out of it,” Carrington said. “They were chanting the whole entire game. They gave us energy. I think they gave us that little boost at the end of the game to finish strong.”
Added White of the crowd: “It’s incredible. It speaks to our continued growth as a league. It speaks to the women’s basketball fans here in the New England area, and New England-area sports fans in general. They’re passionate about their sports.”
The game itself might have been choppier than what the Sun, who still are incorporating recent trade acquisition Marina Mabrey into the fold, had hoped. As part of that, veteran Bonner came off the bench, per her suggestion to the coaching staff, for the first time since 2016, which allowed the team to experiment with different lineups.
The Sun will get back to the drawing board soon but won’t lose sight of what was considered a special night for both the franchise and the league.
White, a former WNBA player herself who’s been around both the college game and the league for decades, said she had tears in her eyes as the team’s introductory video was shown on the jumbotron right before tip, an emotion she hadn’t experienced since she coached in a Game 5 of the Finals with the Indiana Fever.
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” White said. “I hope our players don’t either.”
