Mohegan — Ty Harris’s Connecticut Sun teammates are always encouraging her to shoot.

“They tell me all the time, ‘Let it fly. When it’s going up, it’s going down,’” Harris said late Wednesday night.

That was the Sun’s mantra for the evening as they opened their first-round WNBA playoff series against the Minnesota Lynx by connecting for 16 3-point field goals in a 90-60 victory in Game 1 of the best-of-three series before 5,056 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena.

The Sun’s Bec Allen was 5-for-6 from 3-point range, with Tiffany Hayes going 4-for-6 and Harris 3-for-3. DeWanna Bonner and Natisha Hiedeman made two each, as third-seeded Connecticut set the franchise’s postseason record for most 3s in a single game.

“I just think it was the way we were moving the ball and just finding the open shot and taking the shots,” Allen said. “I think the big thing we’ve been saying is, ‘If you’re open, shoot it. Let it fly.’ And so we were really trying to make the most of whatever their rotations were and finding that open player.”

“Honestly,” Harris said, “when I tell you we shoot those shots every day 100 times ... I mean, it’s just consistency, hard work.”

Bonner finished with 17 points and 15 rebounds, Alyssa Thomas 15 points, 10 assists and five steals and Allen 15 points, six rebounds, three assists, four steals and two blocked shots for the Sun. Hayes had 14 points and Harris 12.

Meanwhile, the Sun’s defense forced 19 Minnesota turnovers, resulting in a whopping 30 points.

The second game of the series is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday at Mohegan Sun, giving the Sun a chance for the sweep to earn a place in the semifinals against either New York or Washington.

“They were just locked in. They were just locked in,” said Sun head coach Stephanie White, in her first season in Connecticut. “I mean it’s do or die time. We’ve got to treat every day like it’s ‘win the day.’ We can’t think about tomorrow, we can’t think about yesterday. It’s just this day and they were locked in. They were talking about staying locked in.”

“It seems like we were surprised by Connecticut’s aggression (on defense),” Minnesota head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “We didn’t see anything that we didn’t think we were going to see. We just didn’t handle it. We just turned it over like crazy. Awfully disappointing.”

Kayla McBride had 16 points for sixth-seeded Minnesota, 14 in the first half, and UConn grad Napheesa Collier had 14 points.

The Sun forced Minnesota into 10 first-half turnovers, resulting in 14 points as Connecticut took a 46-32 lead at the break.

Hayes had nine first-half points for the Sun and Bonner had eight points, seven rebounds and four assists.

The Sun led 18-16 after one quarter. Minnesota took its first lead of the game on two free throws by Nikolina Milic, 22-20, but with the Lynx leading 24-22, Harris responded with back-to-back 3-pointers to forge a 28-24 Sun lead.

Bonner and Hayes followed with 3s and DiJonai Carrington unleashed a seven-point barrage of her own, beginning with a three-point play, that made it 41-27. Thomas capped a 21-3 Sun run by knocking down a foul line jump shot.

Connecticut’s Allen closed the scoring in the half with a 3-pointer, the ninth of the game for the Sun.

Harris called it one of the Sun’s “best, most complete games” of the season. Connecticut is attempting to make its way back to the WNBA FInals, where it lost a year ago to the Las Vegas Aces.

“I think we harped on focusing on our defense to create offense, having everything come together by this time, the playoffs,” Harris said.

“I felt like we came out, especially on the defensive end of the floor, and we were just aggressive and we executed and we had a high level of intensity and activity and that carried over offensively,” White said. “It’s just a big win for us. We certainly understand the job is not done, but it’s a good start.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com