NEW YORK (AP) -After getting badly outrebounded the previous night, the Connecticut Sun fixed that problem and took advantage of the New York Liberty's own troubles on the boards.

Lindsay Whalen had 14 points and a career-high 12 rebounds to lead the Sun to a 66-57 victory over the Liberty on Sunday. Connecticut (1-1), outrebouned 44-26 in a season-opening loss at home to Washington on Saturday night, outworked New York 47-33.

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``Rebounding was an emphasis last night,' Whalen said. ``Coach (Mike Thibault) broke it down and showed us our rebounding percentage. Everybody took it a little bit more on themselves to get rebounds. Our posts box out and a lot of time my player is back so I can kind of run in, try to get rebounds and I tried to do that as much as possible.'

Erin Phillips scored 13 points, Tamika Whitmore had 11 points and eight rebounds, and Asjha Jones added 10 points for the Sun, who don't play again until hosting Atlanta next Sunday.

``It evens out the weekend,' Whalen said. ``We would have been sitting dwelling on it all week. That's no way you want to go into a break, a week of practice knowing you went down 0-2 so everybody just focused and played extremely hard today.' .

Shameka Christon scored 13 points and Janel McCarville had 10 for the Liberty (0-1), who dropped to 3-10 in their season openers. New York also lost at home to the Sun last year in its first game.

New York finished 4 for 24 on 3-pointers, including 0 for 9 in the third quarter as Connecticut used a 16-0 run to take a 12-point lead. The Sun outscored the Liberty 19-6 in the period.

``We were 3-point shot happy,' Liberty coach Pat Coyle said. ``We have to do something differently.'

Coyle was also not happy with the team's rebounding, which was a focus during training camp after New York finished 12th in the league in that category last year.

``This was discussed for the last three weeks,' Coyle said. ``We have to put a body on somebody and there is no ifs ands or buts about it. We got outrebounded by 14. That can't happen.'

After trailing by 12 late in the third quarter, the Liberty pulled to 53-48 on McCarville's 3-pointer with about seven minutes left.

However, Phillips hit a 3 of her own less than a minute later to push the Sun's lead back to eight.

Christon was down on the court for several minutes with 2:46 left in the game after she stepped on Whalen, who had fallen down first. Christon got up, gingerly walked around favoring her right leg, and hit two free throws to pull the Liberty within six and left the game. X-rays were negative and the Liberty said she had a mild right ankle sprain.

Whalen hit a running jumper 20 seconds later and Tamika Whitmore converted a three-point play with 1:25 left to seal Connecticut's win.

New York trailed by four with about 2 1/2 minutes left in the first half, but used a 7-1 run to take a 32-30 lead at the break on Leilani Mitchell's buzzer-beating 55-footer, a flat-footed, one handed toss from beyond halfcourt.

``I just threw it and I didn't think it would go in,' Mitchell said. ``It was good enough, it gave us the lead.'

Essence Carson's jumper in the opening minute of the third quarter gave New York a four-point advantage.

Connecticut then scored the next 16 points to take control. Phillips and Whitmore, who spent her first five seasons with the Liberty, had five points each during the run.

Thibault said his halftime speech centered on forgetting the last 1 1/2 minutes of the second quarter and focusing on how the team had built a lead before that.

``We made an adjustment in the second quarter on a couple of things,' he said. ``Then the third quarter we almost played it perfectly defensively.'

Carson's driving layup with 1:37 left ended New York's scoring drought of about 7:45, pulling the Liberty to 46-36.

New York rookie Kia Vaughn, who attended high school two blocks from Madison Square Garden and then played at nearby Rutgers, received a strong ovation from the crowd during pregame introductions and again when she entered the game with about 2 1/2 minutes left in the first quarter. She was scoreless on 0 for 3 shooting in 15 minutes.