Sun suffer late collapse in showdown with Fever at sold-out TD Garden

Emily Adams, Hartford Courant on Jul 15, 2025

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BOSTON — The Connecticut Sun and Indiana Fever put on a show for a sold-out crowd of more than 19,000 fans at TD Garden on Tuesday night, but the visiting team emerged with an 85-77 victory after seven lead changes and 10 tied scores.

The Sun never led in the second half, but the game didn’t get out of reach until the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Connecticut ultimately couldn’t overcome four double-digit scorers for the Fever, led by 20 points from All-Star guard Kelsey Mitchell and 18 from veteran forward Natasha Howard. The loss was the Sun’s first in Boston after a win over the Los Angeles Sparks at the iconic arena in 2024.

Veteran center Tina Charles had a vintage performance to power the Sun, logging her fourth double-double of the season with 21 points plus 11 rebounds and three assists. But Connecticut got contributions from nearly its entire roster with eight different scorers, and it out-rebounded Indiana’s elite frontcourt 40-37. But the difference for Indiana was its 49.2% shooting from the field to Connecticut’s 36.1%, despite the Sun attempting 24 more shots than the Fever did.

Rookie Leila Lacan, making just her fifth game appearance since arriving from France, was a game-changer for the Sun on both ends of the floor. She spent most of her minutes matching up against Fever phenom Caitlin Clark and didn’t give up a basket to the superstar while she was on the court until the final four minutes of the game. Lacan started 3 for 3 from the field and finished with a career-high 19 points, shooting 8 for 13 from the field, also adding three steals. Clark shot just 1 for 7 from 3-point range, though she finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.

The Sun gave up 29 points in the first quarter, but that was more a result of Indiana’s remarkable shooting than their defensive effort. Rookie Saniya Rivers opened the first quarter by intercepting a bad pass from Clark and taking it coast-to-coast for a layup, and Connecticut’s effort didn’t slow down from there. The team forced five first-quarter turnovers led by two steals from Rivers while giving up just one, and it held Clark to just two points on two field-goal attempts despite her four assists.

Howard gave the Sun problems early, shooting a perfect 5 for 5 in the opening quarter, and Indiana hit a combined 75% from the field. But despite going 1 for 6 on 3-pointers, the Sun put together a full-team effort to keep pace with six different scorers hitting 50% from the field. Charles led Connecticut with nine points in the first, also adding three rebounds, a steal and a block.

The Sun fell behind by as many as nine points in the second quarter, but the team responded with a 10-0 run that sparked shortly after an Indiana fan was ejected from his courtside seat next to the Connecticut bench. The fan reportedly reached out and touched Rivers, who immediately turned to the referees signaling that she wanted the fan removed from the arena. After a brief conversation, security stepped in to remove the fan, who wore a No. 22 Fever T-shirt.

Mitchell ended the Sun’s run, combining with Howard to account for 23 of Indiana’s first-half points on 11-for-14 shooting. Fever guard Sophie Cunningham hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send Indiana into the locker room with a 44-42 lead, but the teams were evenly matched in nearly every statistical category.

The back-and-forth continued in the third, but Indiana broke open a five-point lead midway through the quarter, and the Sun never managed to overcome the deficit in the entire second half. Lacan had 10 points by the end of the quarter, and rookie Aneesah Morrow made her second field goal of the game to tie the score at 60 points in the final minute of the third, but Fever star Aliyah Boston (11 points, six rebounds) finally found her shot after an 0-for-4 start to send Indiana into the fourth quarter with a two-point lead.

Boston came alive in the fourth, scoring seven points in the first four minutes, but the Sun continued to find answers and never trailed by more than four until the final four minutes of the game. Clark sank her first field goal since the second quarter to open up a five-point lead for Indiana, then hit a pair of free throws to put Connecticut down by three scores. The Fever star sank her first 3-pointer after an 0-for-5 start a few seconds later, and the Sun never got the Indiana lead back below five points.