An 'L' in ATL

Some notes and quotes from the Sun's 97-82 loss at Atlanta on Friday night:

* This is the Sun's third straight loss to the Dream and fourth in their last five meetings.

* The Sun led, 6-1, in the first quarter before the Dream outscored them, 50-25, over the remainder of the half. In the decisive second quarter in which Atlanta outscored Connecticut, 25-9, the Sun shot 16.7 percent from the field (3-of-18) while Atlanta shot 68.8 percent.

* The 39 field goals the Dream made are the most for a Sun opponent through regulation. The 81 points they scored through three quarters tied the most for a Connecticut opponent (Phoenix, June 18, 2008) and the 33 field goals they made in the same span broke the mark Atlanta set last year on Sept. 11, 2009 when it hit 32 shots entering the fourth to knock the Sun from playoff contention.

* The Dream largely was a three-person show: Angel McCoughtry (32 points, 10 rebounds), Sancho Lyttle (27, 17 rebounds) and Iziane Castro Marques (18) made 31 of their team's 39 field goals, scored 77 of its 97 points and nearly became the first trio to all score at least 20 points in the same against Connecticut.

* Tina Charles had 22 points and 11 rebounds, both team highs. Anete Jekabsone-Zogota added 13 points and Tan White had 10.

For more stats, here's the box score.

Sun coach Mike Thibault, on the game: “In 40 years of coaching, I think that’s the worst half of basketball I’ve had a team play in the first half. Hopefully when we get our other two players (Asjha Jones and Sandrine Gruda) back, we’ll do a better job on the boards. But you have to play with what you have.

"We had a week to get ready for this. Our whole focus at practice was defensive transition against their fastbreak and defensive rebounding. We were awful at both.”

Tina Charles, on the absence of Jones (rehabbing after Achilles' tendon surgery) and Gruda (training with French national team until early June): “You can’t use that as an excuse. We’re pros, this is what we chose to do.”

Kara Lawson, on approach to the game: “We felt like our best chance was to get them in a halfcourt game, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight.”