Eric Thibault admitted he has not been angrier at halftime this season. His Washington Mystics put together their best offensive performance of the year Saturday, so he knew the Dallas Wings would be out to redeem themselves in a rematch Sunday afternoon. Through 20 minutes, the coach was right — the Wings led by five.
Washington, D.C
The Mystics’ surge continues with another victory over the Wings
“I was like a little caged animal this morning because you could see what was coming,” Thibault said. “You could see a team that got blown out yesterday, that’s got pride and great players [and] is going to come back a certain way. I told the team after the game it’s never not going to be hard. … It’s always going to be hard, and we had to have a little bit more maturity about our approach. But to our credit, we played the way we want to play in the second half.”
The Mystics bounced back to grab a 10-point lead after three quarters and never trailed again in a 92-84 victory at Entertainment and Sports Arena. Their 92 points were their second most of the season, trailing only their output from Saturday’s 97-69 win. Those back-to-back outbursts came from the team that ranked last in the WNBA in scoring most of the season, but the turnaround has been in the works for seven games now: The Mystics have averaged 87.3 points in that stretch, which would rank second in the league.
And now the Mystics (4-13), who have won four of five, are out of last place in the league despite a franchise-worst 0-12 start and major injury problems. Sstarting power forward Shakira Austin (hip) has missed the past nine games, starting point guard Brittney Sykes (foot) the past four (and all but three this season) and rookie Aaliyah Edwards (lower back) the past two.
The Wings (3-13) came out with the energy Thibault expected, particularly after an emotional talk from Latricia Trammell. The second-year coach and her players discussed their “why” — meaning why — and for whom — they play the game. Dallas’s losing streak still reached 11 games Sunday, but she wanted everyone to think about why they do this, even in tough times. Trammell spoke about her mother, father and brother, who died in recent years.
“Losing as many as we have in a row, due to our situation, just bringing that energy, the passion back,” Trammell said as tears began to well in her eyes before the game. “I told them my ‘why,’ got emotional. You’ve got to love what we do. … You’ve got to enjoy what we do because you never know.”
That emotion seemed to take root for a Wings team missing Satou Sabally (shoulder), Maddy Siegrist (finger) and Jaelyn Brown (illness). Natasha Howard scored 20 of her game-high 26 points in the first half and Arike Ogunbowale added 15 of her 23 as Dallas outrebounded Washington 22-12. Dallas led by 10 in the second quarter, but a 51-46 halftime lead disappeared, with a 29-14 third putting the Mystics in control.
The Mystics’ Stefanie Dolson had 18 points and eight rebounds, both team highs. Karlie Samuelson and Emily Engstler scored 13 points apiece, and Ariel Atkins and Myisha Hines-Allen (now in the starting lineup) finished with 12 each. The Mystics had a season-high 27 assists, including seven from Atkins, and shot 51.9 percent from behind the arc (14 for 27).
“[Dolson has] taken the challenge,” Thibault said. “We’ve asked a lot of her. We’ve asked for a lot of minutes against a lot of physical players and then also to have legs to make shots at the other end. It’s not easy.”
Dolson has averaged 16 points in her past three games after entering Sunday scoring 8.9 per game. She was 4 for 5 from behind the arc and has made a career-high 35 threes in 17 games this season. Engstler had 22 points all season before she scored a career-high 23 on Saturday.
“At this point, when the team needs you to play a little more minutes and stuff like that, when you go hard in practice, it’s kind of just what happens when you show up ready,” Engstler said. “The past three weeks of practices has really been where my confidence has gotten better.”
Despite having several major contributors sidelined, the Mystics are playing their best basketball of the season. And for the first time, the Mystics don’t have a road trip this week: They close a four-game homestand with games against Connecticut on Thursday and Las Vegas on Saturday.
“Just paying attention to details and the little things because we all know how to play basketball,” Dolson said. “It’s just a matter of can we get open? Can we make that hard cut? Can we set a really good screen to get our teammate open? And I think in the first half tonight we weren’t doing as good of a job of that. And we kind of turned it around. … It’s just time that we’ve gotten to play together and starting to learn each other a little bit more.”