Thursday night, the Connecticut Sun hosted the New York Liberty in a preseason matchup at Mohegan Sun Arena.
Thursday night’s game was also the return of Brionna Jones to the court at Mohegan Sun. Jones hasn’t played a game at Mohegan since June 15th, 2023. On June 20, 2023, Jones suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon during a matchup with Seattle Storm at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. The injury happened with about 1:05 remaining in the game. Jones had 13 points, four rebounds, three assists, and a steal before being helped off the court, and the Sun won 85-79.
Jones had reparative surgery performed by Dr. Nicholas Seibert of the Swedish Orthopedic Institute-Seattle, and did not return for the remainder of the season.
On Thursday night, Jones played ten minutes. She finished with two offensive rebounds, six assists, one block, and one steal.
Following the Thursday evening game, Jones was asked how she felt being back, and she said, “Yeah, no, it felt great to be back out there. Just to see all the work, all the rehab and everything that I’ve gone through this offseason, you know, come to this moment and get back on the court with this team, it was great. Like, I feel great and can’t wait to do a little bit more.”
Connecticut Sun Head Coach Stephanie following Thursday nights game was asked about what she saw from Jones, and how long she thought it would take for Jones to return, and she said, “Yeah, I think everybody’s different. You know, I think everybody’s different. You know, you’ve seen when Alyssa Thomas came back from hers and she was on the fast end of it. I think Breezy’s probably on the pretty quick end of it as well. So, you know, now it’s about getting her timing, getting her rhythm, getting her confidence, you know, taking a couple of falls and being able to bounce back up, working through fatigue, getting back in game shape. I mean, you saw, like, just short on her shots, a little bit late in the rotations, but that’s part of coming back from injury. You know, nothing that we’re concerned about or worried about, it’s just working our way back. I think the biggest thing is keeping her patient with herself, confident in where she is and what she’s doing. For us, you know, there’s confidence in having her on the floor. She’s an elite communicator on the defensive end. She’s always going to be in the right spot. She takes up space on the interior. I mean, we didn’t have one player who could bang with JJ a year ago. You know, so having Breezy back on the floor lives a little bit stronger. You know, Queen strong on the interior gives us some different options as Breezy’s working her way back.”