WASHINGTON — Elena Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver stated their shared goal when they joined the Mystics for the 2017 season: Win the championship that the franchise never had.
In the final minute of doing just that on Thursday, after Toliver captured a loose ball and drew a foul in Game 5 of the W.N.B.A. finals against the Connecticut Sun, Delle Donne ambled over and hugged her friend and teammate. With an 89-78 victory, the two had combined forces — Delle Donne’s transcendence with Toliver’s pedigree — to become, together, what they’d set out to be: champions.
“All I said to the team before the game was, ‘Regret nothing,’” said Toliver, the only member of the team to have won a title before.
For a series that seemed less even and more a series of violent swings, Game 5 settled into an equilibrium befitting a pair of championship-level teams with only one trophy to go around. Early tone-setting drives to the basket from each team’s signature player, Jonquel Jones of the Connecticut Sun and the Delle Donne, the league’s Most Valuable Player Award winner, served notice that any loss would not come from a limit of opportunity.
Delle Donne, who had been limited offensively throughout the series because of herniated disks in her back, worked to bridge the gap between her healthy and injured selves. With the title on the line Thursday, she attacked the basket as if she had a whole off-season to rest and recover — which, of course, she does.
“I felt pretty decent today, and I also knew today was the last game,” said Delle Donne, who finished with 21 points and nine rebounds. “I can rest now. So I felt like I was able to give a little bit more, especially on the defensive end.”
Jones, however, made sure that whatever sins she committed in this deciding game, they would not be sins of omission. Jones had eight shot attempts at the break, matching her total for all of Game 3. The Sun’s reliance on Jones was tested, as she struggled with foul trouble all night, though Connecticut Coach Curt Miller kept her in for key stretches.
“It’s a winner-take-all game,” Miller said. “You’ve got to let these guys play through some of their fouls. But with the dedication on their part schematically to throw the ball inside, you know, it’s hard.”
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