Jul. 19—MOHEGAN — DiJonai Carrington had not been making enough of an impact off the Connecticut Sun bench for head coach Curt Miller’s liking during Tuesday afternoon’s game, so the two had … a dialogue.
“Curt got (on) me a little bit in the third quarter and I had to respond,” Carrington said.
What exactly did Miller say?
Carrington laughed, paused and replied, “Play hard.”
Carrington did more than enough after her conversation with Miller. She scored 14 of her career-high 18 points during a decisive fourth quarter as the Sun pulled away from the New York Liberty 82-63 before a raucous crowd of 6,288 at Mohegan Sun Arena, many of which were youngsters attending the game as part of Camp Day.
Alyssa Thomas stuffed the stat sheet with 18 points, 13 rebounds, six steals and five assists for Connecticut (17-9) and Brionna Jones had 21 points and eight rebounds. Natisha Hiedeman added 10 points and four assists.
Former UConn standout Bria Hartley, who signed with the Sun on Monday and arrived in town after midnight, played over 12 minutes and had two assists.
Sabrina Ionescu had 13 points, five rebounds and four assists for the Liberty (9-16) and UConn’s Stefanie Dolson added 12 points and six rebounds.
Carrington had been in a shooting slump over the previous 10 games. She shot 25% from the floor during that stretch and averaged almost as many steals (1.2) as made field goals (1.3).
Carrington made 5 of 7 shots and all six of her free throws Tuesday.
Miller, when asked what he told Carrington in the third quarter, began smiling.
“I have conversations with ‘Nai all the time,” Miller said. “(I) just challenged her to be really sound. She can gamble a little bit. She can try to do too much on the offensive end and we needed her defense. We needed her…