After a regular season of mediocrity, the Chicago Sky have risen and reached their full potential. They have made it to the WNBA Finals. They did so by defeating the Connecticut Sun 79-69 on Wednesday night thanks to a stellar performance by Candace Parker who had 17 points, 9 rebounds in 34 minutes of play.
A dominant display
The Sky were in control of the game from the jump. They started hot leading 20-9 midway through the first and they never looked back. Yes, the Sun would make the occasional run, but in an elimination game, they were unable to ever hold a lead.
This was thanks largely to a stellar performance from the Chicago Sky starters. Four of the five starters were in double digits and the starters accounted for 71 of the team’s 79 points. That’s not ideal, but it’s a testament to just how dominant they were on Wednesday. Vandersloot was the scoring leader with 19 points and a surprising five for six from three. Copper had 18 points and 6 boards. And Azura Stevens had one of her best games of the playoffs scoring 11 points and grabbing 7 boards.
Peaking at the right time
The Sky played nearly a perfect game on Wednesday. Three-point shooting was at a whopping 48%, they managed to get 33 boards which was only one less than the Sun, and turnovers were high at 16, but that brought them dead even with Connecticut. They’ve been dominant during this playoff run winning four of five games and are now heading to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2014. We all knew this team’s potential since the day they signed Candace Parker, but they are now starting to reach that potential. A WNBA championship would make this team unequivocally the greatest Chicago Sky team of all time and, one can argue, they already are. They’ll play Game one of the WNBA Finals on Sunday at 2 pm CT, but we don’t know against whom yet. The Aces vs Mercury matchup is heading to a winner-take-all Game 5 which is happening on Friday so we’ll know then who the Sky will face. Either way the Sky will be the road team due to regular season standings so the only question that remains is, will they start off in Phoenix or Las Vegas?
Sky in the Chi 