BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — It’s been five days since Tuesday’s historic WNBA game at TD Garden, in which 19,000 Boston fans inundated one of the most famous arenas in all of basketball to watch a regular season game between the Connecticut Sun and Los Angeles Sparks.
DeWanna Bonner reflects on WNBA crowds increasing from ‘5 fans to 19,000’
On Saturday, the 37-year old star deemed the Connecticut Sun’s TD Garden an all-time memory.
Photo by Chris Marion/NBAE via Getty Images
Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for Breakaway, SB Nation’s women’s sports vertical, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.
For 37-year DeWanna Bonner — a two-time WNBA champion — few memories will rival that historic game.
“Playing at the garden kind of takes the cake for us,” Bonner said when asked about where this week ranked within her decorated WNBA career. “It’s something that we was looking forward to the whole season. Celtics won a championship there. So, get a little bit of that championship energy.”
In the days leading up to the game, players expressed their surprise at the fact that the game was sold out.
“I thought we were going to cover up the whole top part above the boxes,” Sun guard DiJonai Carrington said.
“But the way we sold out in those crowds — it was amazing,” Bonner said. “We did not think it was going to be that crazy.”
Coming off the bench actually allowed Bonner to appreciate the experience even more. The Sun have been tinkering with their starting lineup since acquiring Marina Mabrey during the Olympic break, and at TD Garden, the lineup was made up of Ty Harris, Carrington, Mabrey, Alyssa Thomas, and Brionna Jones.
“It’s funny, because I didn’t start that game, so I actually got to sit down and take it all in,” Bonner said. “And I’m like, ‘Man, I was in the league when it was five people in the stands, and now we’re looking at 19,000.’ And something that I can say is that I helped build in Connecticut to get that crowd, and to experience it with my teammates.”
Bonner said tons of fans stopped her and Thomas in the streets of Boston on the day of the game, .
“Me and Alyssa was walking down the street, just getting a smoothie, and we can barely make it to the smoothie place, because it’s like, every five seconds somebody was stopping us to take a picture, or say ‘good luck, we’ll be at the game,’” Bonner said. “And the energy in the field was just totally different, and it’s something that I would hold to my heart forever.”
The experience was so meaningful that it rivaled some of Bonner’s top career moments, including winning a WNBA title back in 2009 and 2014.
“That was really, really special to us,” Bonner said. “That’s going to go down in one of my top history, my top memories in history. Because, man, that was amazing. It was kind of hard to play that game.”
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