Mohegan — Courtney Williams said less than 24 hours before Sunday’s WNBA playoff game that the Connecticut Sun did not want to go to Texas to play a decisive third game this Wednesday.

Connecticut’s play said otherwise for the majority of Sunday’s game.

The Dallas Wings beat the Sun, 89-79, to win Game 2 of the best-of-three series and it in no way resembled a 10-point loss for Connecticut.

The Sun missed 9 of their first 10 shots and fell behind 22-7 after one quarter before 6,788 at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Dallas led by as much as 31 points (80-49) with 9 minutes, 14 seconds left in the game.

“It’s tough when you put yourself in a hole,” Connecticut’s Brionna Jones said. “We’ve got to be better coming out from the jump. We know what we can do.”

Game 3 is Wednesday night at the College Park Center in Arlington, Texas (9, ESPN).

As losses go, the game was over nine minutes away from being among the worst clunkers in Sun history (the 88-65 beatdown the Detroit Shock gave them at the Arena in the decisive third game of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals on Aug. 13 springs immediately to mind).

Connecticut reserves Nia Clouden, Joyner Holmes, Brionna Jones, Odyssey Sims and Dijonai Carrington closed the game with a 20-5 run to keep the game from being an embarrassing rout.

“Disappointed, obviously, with the results,” Sun head coach Curt Miller said. “I thought we had two or three wide-open threes (early in the game) and then missed some shots in the paint. Then offense sometimes affects your defense and we just immediately dug ourselves a hole. Big credit to Dallas. I thought they played really hard.”

Asked if the team’s issue was execution or effort through three quarters, Sun star Jonquel Jones said, “I think it was us on defense. You know defense has been our main catalyst for the entirety of the season. … I don’t think there was ever a time when we could say that we got three stops in a row.”

Kayla Thornton, who has shot 32.1% from behind the arc during her seven-year career, made three in the first quarter alone to electrify Dallas’ offense. She finished with 20 points, five rebounds and four assists.

Teaira McCowan had 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Wings and Allisha Gray had 15 points, eight assists and three steals.

Jonquel Jones had 20 points and nine rebounds for the Sun and Brionna Jones had 20 points and four rebounds. Carrington added 13 points and six rebounds.

The game bore no resemblance to Connecticut’s 93-68 romp in Game 1 on Thursday night as the Wings were the aggressors from the jump.

Dallas head coach Vickie Johnson made one notable tactical change by starting Isabelle Harrison at center instead of the 6-foot-7 McCowan, who was among the reasons the Wings won six of their last eight games to make the playoffs.

“The change of matchup was not about starting lineups,” Johnson said, “it was really to match Bri Jones. Bri Jones came in, (McCowan) came in.

“(Harrison) brought energy. She was able to match JJ’s. We know JJ is a rhythm player and didn’t want her to catch a rhythm early, and so she did a lot of great things for us.”

The Wings also took it to the Sun on the boards. The latter led the league in both offensive rebounds (10.2) and total rebounds (37.1) during the regular season.

Dallas outscored Connecticut, 23-11, on second chance points. McCowan almost had as many offensive rebounds (eight) as the Sun (10).

The Wings also scored 20 off of 12 Sun turnovers.

“(They were) very productive off our turnovers and then we had a hard time keeping them off the offensive glass,” Miller said. “Our first shot defense, when you go back and look statistically, (was) not poor. We’ve had better but certainly not poor, but now (Dallas makes) second chance points and everything gets magnified.

“It just seemed like every time they got an offensive rebound, they scored (on) either a putback or a wide-open three.”

n.griffen@theday.com