The Washington Mystics endured a historically futile start to the season, losing their first 12 games to set a franchise record.
But entering Sunday’s home game against the surging Minnesota Lynx, Washington is trending toward a more favorable side of history.
Winners of five of their last six games, the Mystics (11-23) sit one game behind the eighth-place Chicago Sky for the final playoff spot. If Washington makes the postseason, it would set a WNBA record for recovering from the worst start to reach the playoffs, per The Washington Post.
Mystics coach Eric Thibault said the team is not overthinking the stakes of its final six regular season games.
“Keep doing what we’re doing. Don’t talk about (the playoff race). Keep playing good basketball. That’s it,” he told The Post.
Washington has won its past two games, scoring 90 points in each.
The Mystics shot 52.9 percent from the field and made half of their 28 3-point attempts in Thursday’s 90-77 road win over the Phoenix Mercury. Karlie Samuelson finished with 19 points and five made 3-pointers — both career highs — on 6-for-6 shooting off the bench.
“It just feels good to have a game like this shooting-wise,” the fifth-year guard said. “All season I’ve been searching for this kind of game.”
Samuelson and her teammates welcome the league’s hottest team in Minnesota (25-9), which has won two straight games and nine of its past 10.
The second-place Lynx are three games behind the New York Liberty with six games left.
Napheesa Collier paired 26 points with 10 rebounds in Minnesota’s 99-88 win at the Indiana Fever on Friday.
Collier’s 20.6 points per game are the fourth-most in the WNBA, but the sixth-year forward credits the Lynx defense for the team’s success.
“It’s something that we’ve really emphasized this whole year and hung our hat on,” she said. “Now that we’re at the end, we really just want to make sure that there’s no slippage; that we stay true to what has gotten us this far and what has really been the game-changer for us.”
Minnesota is currently third in scoring defense this year (76.5 opponent points per game) after finishing next to last (85.0 ppg) in 2023.
The Lynx have won all three meetings with the Mystics this season, including a 99-83 victory at Washington on Aug. 17.
–Field Level Media