The last time the Washington Mystics and Atlanta Dream faced off, the Mystics had the hot hand and drained 17 3-pointers en route to an 87-68 win on June 11.
The opposite was the case in Friday’s rematch between the teams at Gateway Center Arena.
Both teams struggled offensively as they combined to go 47 of 133 but the Mystics’ 43.3 % shooting percentage (26 of 60) outpaced Atlanta’s 28.8 (21 of 73) shooting clip and Washington edged the Dream 72-69.
“(It was) definitely a missed opportunity for us,” Dream coach Tanisha Wright said. “[I’ll] give credit where credit is due. I thought Washington did a good job of just holding the fort. I thought a lot of what happened today, I thought we beat ourselves. We had a lot of opportunities and did a lot of good things.”
Atlanta (12-25) is still in contention for the eighth and final playoff spot. Washington (13-24) is in eighth, in front of Chicago (13-24), in the league standings as Washington has the head-to-head advantage (2-1) with Chicago. If the Dream lose on Sunday, they will be out of playoff contention.
“We had plenty of opportunities that we missed that we should have been able to convert on,” Wright said. “That would have helped open up the lead and different things like that. We have to have short-term memory because we have to go to Washington. We can’t worry about this one. We have to do all the things that we did well today, we have to take it to Washington with us.”
Four Atlanta starters were in double figures, led by Allisha Gray’s 17 points, but Dream starters combined to shoot 16 of 63. Naz Hillman had a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds as she shot 4 of 11 from the field.
“(It was) another tough shooting night,” Hillmon said. “I thought (we had) some good shots. Some of them, I’ll speak for myself, were wide-open; just throwing them over the basket. Those are ones you have to take advantage of. Especially when it comes down to layups and points in the paint. I think we (did) a lot of good things tonight and if a couple more (shots) fell that usually do, it might be a different story for this game.”
Atlanta’s best quarter was the first as the Dream shot 8 of 17 and outscored Washington 20-14. Atlanta shot 1 of 19 in the second quarter and was outscored 20-10.
“They probably did make some (defensive) adjustments,” Hillmon said. “I think that’s when we started to get into missing the easy and open (shots). That happens. This is a game of runs. It just felt like their runs just lasted a little bit longer than ours. After we made just a couple (shots) – maybe two or three in a row – it felt like we got back into that bad luck.”
Turnovers reared their ugly head as Atlanta committed 16 turnovers which the Mystics converted into 15 points.
“Turnovers definitely didn’t help us in terms of our flow of the game,” Hillmon said. “They got their hands on a lot. They got tips and deflections which really slowed down what we were trying to do. It’s hard to get into your offense when every time you’re trying to receive the ball, it’s deflected and now you’re taking seconds off the (shot) clock and you’re trying to go back into something. Then you end up with a shot clock violation or just not getting into what you wanted to because the timing of things wasn’t right.”
It was a solid night for Lorela Cubaj (four points, four rebounds, two steals) and Maya Caldwell (seven points), who scored all 11 of Atlanta’s bench points. They were a big part of the Dream’s first-quarter lead, where they combined for eight points.
“(Cubaj and Caldwell) are always ready when their names are called,” Gray said. “They executed the game plan. I’m just happy with the way they performed because they stay ready when their names are called.”
Hillmon agreed, saying, “For both of them, it may not show up on the stat sheet but they do some really good things. (Cubaj) and her energy just getting up the floor, sometimes she takes two post players with her and then it leaves myself and Tina (Charles) open. Maya gives (Gray) and (Rhyne Howard) a break because she’s usually guarding the best player on the floor when she comes in.”
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