Staff and wire reports

NEW YORK It was a 24 hours full of distractions for the Connecticut Sun.

Alyssa Thomas learned she was a reserve for the WNBA All-Star game Saturday in Seattle on Tuesday.

At the same time, Connecticut Sun coach Curt Miller learned he and his staff were going to replace Bill Laimbeer and his staff on the bench as coach of the Eastern Conference.

Jasmine Thomas learned she would be a competitor in the 3-point shooting contest at the All-Star game.

Oh, and the Sun had to play the Liberty in New York on Wednesday morning.

Connecticut fell to New York, 96-80, before 17,443 fans for Camp Day at Madison Square Garden.

The loss dropped the Sun into a tie with Washington, a 100-96 winner over Atlanta Wednesday, at 12-9 for best record in the Eastern Conference. New York is equal to both in the loss column at 10-9.

New York coach Bill Laimbeer was supposed to coach the Eastern Conference at the All-Star game but opted out.

Laimbeer's wife contracted a virus while in Africa on vacation and was hospitalized for a few days. Laimbeer decided to spend time with his wife while she recovers. New York hits the road for two weeks after the All-Star Game.

Because the Sun were leading the Eastern Conference at the time of Laimbeers decision on July 10, Miller was named the head coach. He will be joined in Seattle on Saturday by his assistant coaches, Steve Smith and Nicki Collen.

It is a substitution role, Miller said after the loss on Wednesday. Obviously were proud of where were positioned right now in the East this season. Were representing Bill (Laimbeer) and his staff. We take pride that we were asked to be the replacementThat New York staff deserves to be out there.

The Sun could have claimed the season series over the Liberty with a win and it was close in the first half.

The two teams were tied at 24 at the end of the first quarter, with the Liberty going up, 45-41, at the break.

The message at halftime was that we were doing a lot of things well, we just weren't necessarily making shots, said Connecticut center Jonquel Jones, who finished with her 11th double-double of the season (14 points, 10 rebounds). We were kind of taking a lot of shots that they didn't want us to take. I guess just trying to attack a little bit more and not settling for too many jump shots and trying to get to the basket.

The difficulty in making shots was even more pronounced in the third quarter.

New York led, 51-47, after Alyssa Thomas (10 points) scored with 6 minutes, 43 seconds left in the third quarter.

It would be the last basket for the Sun for the next 4 minutes as the Liberty scored 13 straight points. Tina Charles (28 points, 17 rebounds) started the New York run.

We didn't play defense like we usually do, Alyssa Thomas said. But we have this little break to regroup and come out strong for the second half because we have a tough Chicago team when we come back. It was a rough shooting day for us from the arc (and) not a good defensive game either, but we cant dwell on it.

Miller began substituting liberally in the fourth quarter.

We wanted to give our bench confidence that they could play against some of the best players in the league and we got that, they really competed in that fourth quarter, Miller said. We needed to get out of this game injury-free with whats happened around the league this week.

Miller was referring to injuries suffered by All-Stars Elena Delle Donne of Washington and Brittney Griner of Phoenix which will cause both to miss the All-Star game.

That caused some changes to the All-Star reserves and starters.

The Eastern Conference reserves announced Tuesday night included Layshia Clarendon (Atlanta), Stefanie Dolson (Chicago), Candice Dupree (Indiana), Allie Quigley (Chicago), Sugar Rodgers (New York) and Elizabeth Williams (Atlanta).

The reserves for the Western Conference are Seimone Augustus and Rebekkah Brunson from Minnesota, Breanna Stewart (Seattle), Chelsea Gray and Nneka Ogwumike (Los Angeles) and Skylar Diggins-Smith (Dallas).

The WNBA All-Star game will be played at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Key Arena in Seattle.

Read more:

Sun enter All-Star break with loss to Liberty - Norwich Bulletin