Grit and resilience get tossed around easily in sports. Often, too easily.
Sometimes, though, those words really do apply.
The Connecticut Sun lost point guard Jasmine Thomas to a torn ACL early in the season. Coach Curt Miller's mother died last month. On Tuesday, the Sun were a game away from elimination. Going into the fourth quarter, they trailed the Chicago Sky and their star-studded, high-powered lineup by 10 points.
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Now here the Sun are, headed to the WNBA Finals after Thursday night's 72-63 win.
"Everybody has stories across this league," Miller said. "Ours . it just seemed like one thing after another that we had adversity this season in and out of that locker room. It's remarkable that this group just refused to use it as excuses.
"I'm so proud of them to fight their way back into the Finals."
And they don't much care that they spoiled the narrative that they knew almost everyone had written.
Las Vegas and Chicago went into the playoffs as the top two teams in the league, with identical records and lineups that were similarly loaded. Surely when it came time for the best-of-five Finals series that would determine bragging rights for this season, both teams would be there.
The Aces will, hosting Game 1 on Sunday afternoon. The Sky seemed as if they would be, too, finding their rhythm in a third quarter in which they outscored Connecticut 18-8 and forced seven turnovers to take that double-digit lead.
But the Sun, as Miller likes to say, are at their best when things are "messy." And nothing was messier than a dustup between DeWanna Bonner and Kahleah Copper with less than four minutes to play.
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Copper, last year's Finals MVP, was sublime from midway through the second quarter on. It was her hustle and aggression that brought the Sky back from a 9-point deficit and kept alive Chicago's hopes of becoming the first repeat champion since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2002.
Her layup with 4:46 to play gave Chicago a 63-54 lead. But a minute layer, she and Bonner got knotted up as Bonner went for a layup. There was some pushing and shoving, and both teams went back to their benches while officials tried to sort things out.
"That was our moment to settle it down," Bonner said. "Yeah, we got fired up. We just looked up and was like, `Oh, there's a lot of time left.' That was all the fire needed."
Miller said he pointed out that, for as poorly as the Sun had played - their 23 turnovers matched their season high - it would only be a two-possession game if Bonner converted the three-point play.
She did, and the Sun had new life.
Miller had said before the game that despite all of Chicago's apparent advantages - playing at home, having lost back-to-back games once all season, a starting lineup with Copper, Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley - the game would be decided by heart. By who could be truer to themselves.
And over those last few minutes, there was no doubt who that team was.
"We played Connecticut Sun basketball the last two minutes of that game," Bonner said.
The Sun didn't allow the Sky to score over the last 4:46, while finishing on an 18-0 run. Some of that was the Sky's own doing. With 1:15 left, Copper stole the ball only to turn it over with a bad pass. There were jumpers that were flat-out missed. Vandersloot lost a foot race to Jonquel Jones in the scramble after a jump ball.
But mostly it was Connecticut's sheer will.
"We've just been so relentless," Bonner said. "We worked so damn hard. Don't count us out yet. I think some people counted us out, but don't count us out because we're relentless."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Connecticut Sun defeat Chicago Sky in playoff series, will face Las Vegas Aces in WNBA Finals