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Although the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun are tied for the East's final playoff spot, strong play over the final three weeks of the regular season could easily get them to the top of the conference.
The Liberty and Sun will jockey for position in a tight playoff race when they meet Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
The six teams in the East are separated by five games, with New York (13-11) and Connecticut (13-11) three behind first-place Indiana, which is percentage points ahead of Atlanta. The Liberty and Sun, who meet in the regular-season finale on Aug. 22 in New York, trail third-place Washington by one game.
New York begins August having won four of five - a stretch that began with an 82-74 overtime victory in Connecticut on July 20.
Cappie Pondexter led all scorers with 24 points, and New York held the Sun to just two points and forced them to miss all seven field-goal attempts in the extra session.
Pondexter scored 20 in Friday's 88-79 win over Los Angeles with the Liberty again stepping it up defensively down the stretch. The Liberty outscored the Sparks 26-16 while limiting them to 5 of 14 from the floor in the fourth quarter.
"I do feel like at the beginning of the season we would've lost this game,'' said Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who had 14 points and nine rebounds. "But now we're pushing through.''
The Sun haven't been enjoying the same success lately, finishing July with a 3-6 record while allowing an average of 85.6 points.
Connecticut's season hit a low point Friday with a 94-62 loss to the Dream, the worst home defeat in franchise history. The Sun trailed by just four with 2:55 remaining in the first half, but Atlanta put the game away with a 25-0 run.
"Somebody had a saying one day, 'Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield.' We were the bug today," Connecticut coach Mike Thibault said.
Rookie Tina Charles, who averages a team-best 15.3 points, had one of her worst offensive performances Friday, finishing with six points on 3 of 10 shooting. The center and top overall pick in 2010 had 14 points against the Liberty last week for the Sun, who play four of their next five games on the road.
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