Sun prevail as playoff-bound Fever rest starters

UNCASVILLE, Conn. -- Kerri Gardin had 23 points, eight rebounds and five assists to help the Connecticut Sun beat an injury-prone Indiana Fever team 95-85 Sunday.

Indiana (22-12), the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, did not dress Katie Douglas or Tammy Sutton-Brown and rested most of its other starters for most of the second half.

Even so, starter Tamika Catchings and the Sun's Tan White collided heads late in the first half. Later, Jessica Moore got tangled up with a teammate and hyperextended her knee less than three minutes into the second half. Moore left the game, and coach Lin Dunn pulled Catchings out, too.

"The whole idea was to get her like 17 minutes and then she got popped in the head," Dunn said. "Look at her shiner. Get those people out of there."

Indiana begins its best-of-three playoff series Thursday at the Washington Mystics.

Tamika Catchings had 13 points and five rebounds for the Fever and Shay Murphy added 13 points and six rebounds.

Sandrine Gruda had 22 points and five rebounds for the Sun (16-18), which missed the playoffs for the first season since 2003 after relocating from Orlando, Fla.

Erin Phillips added six points, seven assists and five rebounds for Connecticut.

"From a strictly basketball standpoint, Xs and Os, I don't know how much you could really take out of it," Connecticut coach Mike Thibault said. "I'm just glad we played hard, gave our fans a good show."

"I think our fans deserved their best effort today. Kind of at least walk out of here with a little better feeling about some things than we had the last week or so. There's lot a lot of basketball stuff to take out of it."