With playoffs on the horizon, Connecticut Sun are sharpening their shooting

The Sun acquired Mabrey, a strategic trade to boost their offensive game, from the Chicago Sky during the Olympic break. And on Saturday, the Sun deployed the best-case scenario of their new roster, hitting a season-high 14 3-pointers — the first time the Sun made 14 3-pointers in a game since 2022 — while shooting 60.9% from deep.

And Mabrey? She went 5-for-7 in 3-point attempts against the Mystics. But she isn’t the only source the Sun need for generating more looks from beyond the arc.

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“I think that what having Marina on the floor does is it naturally generates more opportunities, because we can space the floor,” White explained to The Next. “So, you have to guard her, you have to guard DB [DeWanna Bonner], you know, you have to guard Ty [Tyasha Harris]. They’re our primary three-point shooters. So when they’re on the floor together, it opens the space up for Alyssa Thomas to do what she does best, in terms of her facilitating to attack, it opens up and creates space for Brianna Jones to go one on one on the block in ways that help can’t come from those guys on the perimeter.”

Mabrey has given the Sun a boost on offense since joining the team, but, per White, the adjustment has been a process. When Mabrey joined the Sun, key players weren’t there right away to help her adapt. Forward Alyssa Thomas was in Paris representing the United States in the Olympics and her teammate and fiancé, guard DeWanna Bonner, was there in support of Thomas.

“It’s been a little bit of a process, because she was there during the Olympic break, of course, but AT [Thomas] and DB [Bonner] were not, and so then bringing her on and allowing them to integrate with her, it’s been in real time in games, not a lot of practice time,” White told The Next. “And so I think the biggest thing is just her teammates understanding positions where she can be successful on the floor, and her understanding where her teammates can be successful on the floor, and really building that, that chemistry, building that rhythm, building that that timing, building those instincts, I think we’ve seen it grow from game to game.”

The Sun now have three strong 3-point shooters in their rotation, with Mabrey, Harris and DiJonai Carrington. This has knock-on effects offensively as well.

“It gives better spacing on the floor and opens up driving lanes as well in the paint. [It allows] AT and Breezy to go to work in there,” Carrington told The Next.

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The Sun is a strong defensive team but White wants to see her team consistently be active during offensive possessions too.

“The other thing for us is just making sure that we’re continuing to get off ball player movement,” White continued. “Whether that’s screening, whether that’s cutting, we say, be a vacuum. So be a vacuum in your cuts. If you don’t get a layup, you’ve got to force a collapse of the defense so that we can open up a shot for someone else, reading the defense when we’re coming off our screens, really being disciplined in our spacing and setting using screens, because we have opportunities now with multiple 3-point shooters on the floor.”

White has standards for what she what’s her team to accomplish with perimeter shooting stats. “We’d love to be in the in the 20-to-25 attempt range for us, no doubt,” she said. “I mean, in a perfect world, I guess it’d be 30. I don’t think we’re that team yet, but we’d love to get 20 to 25 threes up.”

Harris and Carrington know they have to do their part to get there. Harris is averaging 11 points per game this season and her 3-point percentage is the second-best on the team, behind Mabrey (46%) at 37.6%.

Harris has also learned to read the defense to know when there are shooting opportunities. “Honestly, we just have to penetrate and find the open person,” she said. “I think we do a lot of penetration, and we don’t really kick it out as much but to see in the second layer, third layer, of the defense and being proactive with that.”

Carrington emphasized to The Next that achieving their goals needs to be a team effort. “We get the shots. We just have to take them,” she said. “I know, myself included, I pass up open threes sometimes, and then I’m forced into the tougher shot. So, it’s just [having] confidence [when] taking the shot all the way across the board.”

Ultimately, the Sun’s work is paying off. But a critical separator between simply another excellent season and one which, finally, ends with a championship may be as simple as how many threes they can take and make.

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