AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- The Connecticut Sun didn't want to

embarrass themselves at the Palace of Auburn Hills again.

The Sun, losers of both regular season games on Detroit's home

court, beat the Shock 73-62 in Game 1 of their first-round WNBA

playoff series Wednesday night.

"It was extremely important for us just to play well here,"

said Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who finished with 14 points and nine

rebounds. "We stunk up the joint the first two times we were here,

and we didn't want to do that again. That was our first thought,

before we even started to worry about winning."

Nykesha Sales led the Sun with 19 points, including two key

3-pointers in the second half.

"Any win on the road when you are playing a three-game series

is important," she said. "We aren't taking anything for granted --

Detroit is a team that always comes back."

Katie Douglas, Lindsay Whalen and Asjha Jones all had 13 points

for Connecticut, which lost to Detroit in the 2003 conference

finals. The Shock went on to win that title, while the Sun advanced

to the 2004 WNBA Finals before losing to Seattle.

"This was a great win," Connecticut coach Mike Thibault said.

"It's huge to go on the road and win a game like this."

Connecticut shot 46 percent from the field and held Detroit,

which starts five 2005 All-Stars, to 35 percent.

"I'm not unhappy with our effort -- Connecticut just played very

well," Detroit coach Bill Laimbeer said. "They just made shots."

Deanna Nolan scored 14 points and Katie Smith added 13 for the

Shock, who dropped the opening game of the first round at home for

the second straight year. Detroit lost in three games to New York

last year.

The series now moves to Uncasville, Conn., for Game 2 on Friday

night, and Game 3 on Sunday if necessary.

"We put ourselves in a hole," Smith said. "Now we have to

bring everything we've got for Friday. We know we have the talent

to pull this off."

The Sun led by as many as 16 early, forcing Detroit to miss 18

of their first 23 shots.

The Shock narrowed the margin to 43-33 at the break, and started

the second half with an 11-0 run to take a one-point lead on

Smith's short jumper with 16:42 to go. Ruth Riley had five points

in the surge and Smith added four.

"We played about as good a first half as you will see in the

playoffs," Thibault said. "We lost our composure for a few

minutes, though. We were getting greedy and not executing, but we

pulled it together and played with great poise down the stretch."

The teams traded the lead until Sales hit back-to-back

3-pointers to put the Sun up 56-51 with 10:38 left. Detroit didn't

get closer than four again, and the Sun pulled away in the final

minutes.

Douglas left the game in the last minute after appearing to

injure her left shoulder in a collision with Detroit's Swin Cash.

"We won't know how bad it is until we get home," Thibault

said. "She had some kind of stinger, we think."