She has her priorities in order

Taj McWilliams-Franklin, a center for the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, was not one of those kids who started playing basketball when she was 6, or played on an AAU team every year during high school.

"My family never talked about sports in my house. I didn't start playing until I was a sophomore," said McWilliams-Franklin, who grew up in Augusta, Ga., and turns 34 next month. "My dad wanted me to go to school for the academics; basketball was just a side thing.

"I think I had basketball in perspective because my parents never let it get out of control. I got to play in the AAU one summer and that was it. Every summer I had to read a certain amount of books. For some players, it's their whole life, but I started so late."

So basketball was never the only priority for McWilliams-Franklin, who is married to Reggie Franklin and has two daughters, 16 years old and 20 months old. The family lives in Connecticut during the summer, but her husband and children are in Italy now, where Franklin is stationed in the Army.

But as much as 6-foot-2-inch McWilliams-Franklin likes to talk about putting things in perspective, she realizes she'll have a very narrow focus this weekend.

The Sun (18-16) visit the Washington Mystics (17-17) at noon today in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. The teams will play in Uncasville, Conn., Monday, and Wednesday if necessary, in the best-of-three series.

McWilliams-Franklin is the Sun's second-leading scorer at 12.1 points per game, and leads the team in rebounds (7.2). Nykesha Sales leads the team in scoring at 15.2. Rookie Lindsay Whalen, who helped lead the University of Minnesota to the Final Four last season, has a team-high 4.8 assists per game.

The Mystics are led by Chamique Holdsclaw (19.0 ppg and 8.3 rpg) and Alana Beard (13.1 ppg), who graduated from Duke last spring but is not looking like a rookie.

The Sun were assured of a playoff berth Sept. 15, when they won the Eastern Conference with two games to go. And in four meetings against the Mystics this season, the Sun went 3-1.

But McWilliams-Franklin, captain of the Sun, said she looks at "the postseason as a new season." And she hopes her experience has an impact on the others.

"Each player has to look inside themselves and decide what we're going to do," she said. "Players have to want it for themselves, and that's just the bottom line. There are no more rookies when we step on the court . . . their first season is over, this is a new season . . . and we're all veterans."

McWilliams-Franklin graduated in 1993 from St. Edward's, where she set records in four scoring categories. She played with teams in Europe, and was drafted by the now-defunct American Basketball League. In 1998, McWilliams-Franklin was on the gold medal-winning USA World Championship team. She was drafted by the Orlando Miracle (now the Sun) in 1999.

For the past three years, during the WNBA offseason, McWilliams-Franklin has played in Italy, where she met her husband.

Which brings her back to the word "perspective."

"Most players go home and think about, `Oh, I had a bad game,' or, `We have a big game coming up,' " she said. "They're a nervous wreck. And I come home, it's just `Mommy, mommy, play with me' . . . who cares that you just played for two hours?

"Basketball's always going to take care of itself, but the kids, that's another thing. So I want to make sure that I'm not too overly excited about basketball, and that I'm not too overly upset where I can come home and still give the right amount of attention to my kids."

This weekend, though, she can allow herself to get excited, and give her full attention to the game. McWilliams-Franklin will have to be a captain more than a mom, for a few hours, anyway.