The Chicago Sky fought through some tense moments in the third quarter and then dominated the fourth, defeating the Connecticut Sun 79-69 on Wednesday night at Wintrust Arena to advance to the WNBA Finals for the second time in franchise history.
The Sky, in their third season under coach/general manager James Wade, will make their first trip to the championship round since 2014, when Pokey Chatman’s squad was swept by the Phoenix Mercury.
The Sky will face the winner of the other semifinals series between the Mercury and Las Vegas Aces. The Mercury led 2-1 entering Game 4 late Wednesday. Game 1 of the WNBA Finals is Sunday.
“It feels unbelievable,” Parker said. “It’s a full circle moment. To look up in the stands and just see all the people that I started playing basketball in front of. It’s super special.”
Said Sky coach James Wade: “It took a lot of togetherness, a lot of belief and a lot of blind faith in what we have as an organization and what we have as people.”
The Sky weathered a seven-game losing streak near the beginning of the season.
“Sometimes you don’t see it but you know it’s there and you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other,” Wade said.
The Sky never trailed and led by as many 18 points, with Candace Parker hitting a 3 in third quarter to put the Sky up 65-47.
But the Sun tightened the vice later in the third. The Sky committed six turnovers and missed five shots in the final 41/2 minutes of the quarter. The Sun drew within 65-58 entering the fourth.
But Azura Stevens — who Miller called “the X factor” in the series — hit a 3 pointer off Parker’s kneeling pass to push the lead up to 10. Stevens finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.
While Stevens indeed was the X-factor in Game 3, Parker was the difference in the clincher. She had 17 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and a pair of blocks and steals.
Her 7-footer from the baseline to put the Sky up 77-62 was the dagger, prompting Miller to call timeout and Chance the Rapper to give high-fives from his courtside seats.
The Sun tried to take away Courtney Vandersloot’s role as a distributor, but she responded with a team-high 19 points, including five 3-pointers.
“Her IQ level — I know we look at the passes and go, ‘Wow, she saw it!’ No, she manipulated it to develop the pass,” Parker said of Vandersloot. “And there’s a difference. There are people who make passes and there are people that cause that to happen.
“Just tonight, teams have trouble in pick-and-rolls guarding ‘Sloot’ because there are so many things because tonight she decided to go under and she was knocking down the 3. I think it just makes us a different ball club. …
“I just love the way she adjusts, and I love the constant communication. That’s something that has developed over the season because the ball is going to be in our hands a lot.”
Vandersloot said about Parker, “I feel like when I have Candance out there I have another point guard on the floor. It makes my job easier.
“Of course there’s moments in the game I was struggling a little bit and I told her, ‘I need you to kind of take over, I’ve got to get my bearings back.’ And that’s what she does. … Good things happen when (the ball) is in her hands. She made huge plays for us like she has been.”
Kahleah Copper added 18 points for the Sky.
The Sun’s Jonquel Jones led all players with 25 points, and Natisha Hiedeman scored 16 off the bench.
“It stings right now. I hurt for them,” Sun coach Curt Miller said. “We’ve been the best home team in the league for the last three years. Right out of the gate home court advantage was gone. We needed to steal one here (in Chicago) and we just couldn’t get it done.”
Wade, looking toward the Finals, said, “It means it’s just an opportunity to keep playing. I can’t really focus on what it means at the moment. I’m really into the next game.
“I’m going to appreciate this, but as soon as I walk through that door, it’s time to concentrate on who we play in the Finals.”
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