The WNBA Finals are not the place you expect there to be significant mental lapses by either team, but after a hard fought Game 1 win, the Aces opened Game 2 with a team-wide blunder on the opening tipoff.
Jonquel Jones won the tip over Kiah Stokes, but instead of tapping it backwards as most do, she flicked the ball forward towards Alyssa Thomas, who corralled it as the Aces ran the other way. The problem was, that was the Sun’s end of the floor and Thomas was able to very calmly jog into the paint and lay it in with not a soul around her, giving Connecticut an early 2-0 lead.
9 seconds of play before an AT bucket.@athomas_25 | #CTSun pic.twitter.com/Y3jo2MWyRr
— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) September 14, 2022
I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw something like this happen in a professional basketball game, much less a Finals game (on a team’s home floor), but the Sun, which can have some offensive lulls and struggles, certainly weren’t going to turn down a freebie to open the contest. The good news for Las Vegas is they quickly bounced back from the blunder, opening up a 21-14 lead on Connecticut after the first eight minutes of the game, but if this game does end up coming down to a single bucket at the end in favor of the Sun, the very first score of the game will be memorable.