The Minnesota Lynx fell to the Connecticut Sun 78-73 at Target Center on Thursday night, taking a loss in consecutive games for the first time this season.

Alanna Smith led the way for the Lynx with 14 points, followed by Kayla McBride’s 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Courtney Williams and Bridget Carleton each had 12 points.

Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier finished with nine points and six rebounds in 25 minutes before exiting the game with a left foot injury. Olivia Époupa also left the game with a left thigh injury.

“Win the next one,” coach Cheryl Reeve said of her message to the team postgame. “Flush it, move on, win the next one. That’s all our focus is.”

DeWanna Bonner had a game-high 24 points for Connecticut, while Alyssa Thomas notched a triple-double with 13 points, 14 assists and 10-rebounds.

The Sun dominated early, jumping out to a 10-2 lead while forcing four Lynx turnovers. Kayla McBride broke Minnesota’s scoring drought but Connecticut pushed the score to 20-9 with three minutes left in the first quarter.

Then came Collier, Époupa, and Dorka Juhász, who combined for all of the Lynx’s eight points, three rebounds, and three steals over the last 2:08 to guide the 8-0 run to end the quarter.

Nearly two scoreless minutes went by to start the second quarter before Connecticut’s Brionna Jones hit one of her two free throws. But a Juhász layup and a Smith 3-pointer gave Minnesota its first lead of the game at 22-21. The Lynx ended the second on an 8-2 run capped off by Williams’ fadeaway shot at the halftime buzzer as Minnesota led 40-36.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” Smith said of the interchanging leads. “If one team goes on a run, the other team also has to withstand the run.”

The Lynx led by double digits early in the second half but made multiple mistakes on both ends while going on a 4:00 scoring drought. That, along with DiJonai Carrington’s consecutive made 3s, allowed the Sun to even the game at 48-all.

Thomas took over for the Suns, scoring nine points herself to lead the 16-5 run for a 64-58 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Collier exited the game towards the end of the third and did not return.

“That’s an MVP caliber player, of course we’d rather have her on the court with us,” McBride said of Collier’s exit. “Just her dominance and presence on both ends of the floor. … I think we needed her at that moment in the third quarter.”

Minnesota tied the game during the fourth before Bonner hit a 3 off Thomas’ 11th assist.

“You can’t [contain her passing],” Reeve said of Thomas’ impact on the game. “She’s smart, she knows how to get assists. She knows where the ball needs to go. You can take it up and you can pressure her and she’ll beat you in a different way.”

After losing back-to-back games for the first time this season, and three of four overall, Reeve and Minnesota look to increase the physicality going into Saturday’s game against the Washington Mystics.

“I think we’ll learn from that, you know, two games where we couldn’t respond to a team’s physicality,” Reeve said. “There’s not any sort of magic thing you could do, just get a little tougher.”

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