Mohegan — Of all the ways the Connecticut Sun could lose to the New York Liberty on Friday night, turnovers and defense wouldn’t have been the top things that came to mind.

Well, they were.

The Sun did so many things right against the Eastern Conference leading Liberty, but those two areas went completely wrong in a 90-78 loss before 5,827 at Mohegan Sun Arena.

New York converted 18 Connecticut turnovers into 26 points.

The Liberty also shot 50.7 percent.

“We talked about two things in the locker room (after the game),” Sun coach Anne Donovan said. “One, they shot 50 percent. We’ve got to get them lower than that, and then the turnovers; as I told the team, I’ll be shocked if I go back and watch the tape tonight and see if there were forced turnovers. Most of our turnovers were on us, and they converted on almost every one of them.”

Connecticut (12-11) remains in fifth place. It’s 4½ games behind the Liberty (16-6). It's also two games behind the second-place Chicago Sky (15-10), and 1½ games behind the third-place Indiana Fever (13-9) and Washington Mystics (13-9).

New York’s inside-outside combination of former Sun center Tina Charles and guard Epiphanny Prince did the majority of the damage for their team. The duo combined to shoot 60.5 percent (23 of 38) for 54 points.

“We didn’t guard the two people that we needed to guard,” Connecticut’s Kelsey Bone said. “That’s their two best players. We talked about forcing somebody else to beat us, and tonight we just didn’t do that.”

The Sun’s All-Star inside-outside combination of Alex Bentley and Bone combined to make 16 of 24 shots for 36 points.

It didn’t matter — Charles had a game-high 31 points and eight rebounds. Prince had 23 points, seven rebounds, six assists and a game-high six steals.

“At the end of the game, coaches are always thinking about what they could’ve done differently,” Donovan said. “We went in not trapping Tina in the low post and were prepared to go to that if we needed to, but Tina was doing her damage outside of the paint. It wasn’t even like we could make that adjustment. She played like an MVP candidate, no doubt.

“Piph (Prince), she’s been playing that well coming into the game. We were hoping we could control her a little bit better, and that just wasn’t the case. (New York’s) combination, when they’re playing off each other, it’s very dangerous.”

New York also drilled the Sun inside, outscoring them 48-26.

What’s crazy about the loss is that Connecticut played better than one would’ve honestly expected given its issues. After losing five players to season-ending injury before the regular season, it will be without starting forward Alyssa Thomas (shoulder sprain) and reserve center Elizabeth Williams (knee contusion) indefintely.

Williams will be out at least two more games. Thomas is out a minimum of two weeks.

Veteran Jennifer Lacy started in Thomas' place on Friday. She was signed off the waiver wire in early July. She made two 3-pointers and scored eight points.

Nikki Greene was signed as an emergency replacement on Thursday. She had four points, three rebounds and a block in nine minutes.

New York is the WNBA’s best rebounding team. The Sun are among the worst. The Liberty just edged the former, 27-25.

New York had the league’s best defensive field goal percentage (38.3). Connecticut shot 50.9 percent.

The Liberty are also the better team, yet Connecticut’s bench gave it a 29-24 lead early in the second quarter.

And the Sun still lost.

“We just did it to ourselves,” Bentley said. “We just beat ourselves, I think.”

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED