WNBA Power Rankings – Mystics up, Sky down and Aces, Sun hold firm at 1-2

We will get a good look this week at what might be the WNBA Finals matchup later this season as Connecticut plays twice in Las Vegas. The Aces and the Sun currently are 1-2 in the league standings and in ESPN’s WNBA Power Rankings.

The WNBA has gone to a schedule that has more back-to-back games against the same opponent in the same place. It cuts down on travel, and Connecticut coach Curt Miller said it also gives a simulation of what a playoff series is like. This season, the league is going back to having best-of-three opening-round series, rather than early-round single-elimination games, as has been the case the last six years.

“I think it’s a real positive,” Miller said of facing the same opponent in consecutive regular-season games. “This give us, and all teams, an opportunity to look at what the playoffs are like: quick turnarounds, talking about adjustments, how did they try to attack us.”

That was the case this past week as Connecticut hosted Dallas twice, with a day in between. Tuesday, the Sun confirmed the unfortunate news that veteran guard Jasmine Thomas was out for the season with a knee injury. That night, they fell 85-77 to the Wings. But two days later, Connecticut beat Dallas 99-68 in a complete turnaround.

Part of that might have been how upset the team was without Thomas — a longtime Sun player and popular leader on the team — in the first game and then adjusting better. But it also had to do with specific things Miller and the Sun saw they could improve on, and then implemented.

This Tuesday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN), the Sun face an Aces team that has just one loss thus far — May 10 at Washington — and has won six games in a row. The second Aces-Sun game is Thursday (10 p.m. ET, Facebook). Along with being a team showcase,…