September 5, 2022
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Curt Miller benched Jonquel Jones and what does it mean for Connecticut Sun’s 2022 WNBA playoff hopes?
By The Next
Howard Megdal breaks down Game 3 of the semifinals between the Connecticut Sun and Chicago Sky
It’s time for another episode of the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast. This episode features host Howard Megdal. In the latter stages of the fourth quarter in Sunday’s WNBA semifinals game between the Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky, Sun head coach Curt Miller benched Jonquel Jones, the WNBA’s 2021 MVP. What did it mean at the moment? Was it the right call? And how will it reverberate through the rest of the series and the future of the franchise? Howard breaks it all down.
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Howard talks about Jonquel Jones’s performance in Game 3 of the semifinals:
“Well, what had they done with Jonquel Jones. They had stopped her. And it’s JJ had six shot attempts in quarter one, one in quarter two, and one in quarter three. I think she ended up with two in quarter four was not a significant part of the offense. And this is an offense that relies on balance. They’re not looking for their star, even their reigning MVP of the league, to score 25 points a game or get 20 to 25 shots. That’s not how they operate.”
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Howard asked coach Miller about the moment he benched JJ and why:
[Curt Miller] yeah, you know, again. It’s sometimes offense-defense. And it’s so much harder at the pro level to do that. Because unless there’s a dead ball, you can’t offense defensive, substituting at the pro level is difficult. At times, now can we get them to spread out and moving with a smaller lineup? You know, what is that going on? I have to make those calls and difficult decisions all the time. They sometimes don’t come with as many doubles to Brionna Jones. So at times, do we get the ball inside with spacing that we want at times because they send so much attention to JJ, so its kind of a feel.
So searching when we are struggling to score and trying to find some more movement late in the game when we are struggling to score.
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