Getting back to what the Mystics do best
It wasn’t quite the WNBA-record 18 3-pointers they hit against Indiana on August 18, but the Washington Mystics tied a WNBA Finals-record with 16 threes to defeat the Connecticut Sun in Game 3.
Natasha Cloud (5 3-pointers), Kristi Toliver (4), Emma Meesseman (3), and Elena Delle Donne (3) all had multiple 3-pointers, some of them wide open and others tightly contested or off the dribble. “Everything was falling for them tonight,” Connecticut guard Bria Holmes said after the game. The offensive fireworks complemented a noticeably tougher defense and gave Washington a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.
Entering Game 3, the Mystics had already taken their 3-point shooting up a notch from the regular season. In their first six playoff games, they made 10.0 3-pointers per game, up from a WNBA-record 9.3 per game during the regular season. They also shot a higher percentage, 39.0% to 36.6%.
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But in Game 3, the Mystics took it to another level despite having two starters, Delle Donne and Ariel Atkins, clearly hobbled by back injuries. The team made 16 of 27 3-point attempts (59.3%), including 6 of 9 in the first quarter. The only quarter in which the Mystics shot under 50% from 3-point range was the second (1 make in 3 attempts).
The second quarter has given the Mystics trouble throughout the playoffs, as they have been outscored in those 10 minutes by an average of 3.7 points. (The margin is -4.3 points in the three Finals games.) It has easily been the team’s worst quarter in the playoffs, far behind its -0.3 average margin in the fourth quarter.
This pattern is slightly different from the Mystics’ dominant regular season, in which they outscored their opponents by an average of 12 points per game.* Half of that margin came in the first quarter (+5.9), and nearly three-fourths of it was set by halftime (+2.4 in the second quarter). The Mystics made 3-pointers at an almost metronomic pace—2.7, 2.2, 2.2, and 2.2 makes in each quarter—but shot their highest percentage in the first quarter. The takeaway for the Sun heading into the Finals had to be to slow down the Mystics’ 3-point shooting early.
The Sun haven’t been able to do that, as the Mystics have shot 50.0% on 3-pointers across the three first quarters. After Game 3, Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas said, “They were able to hit threes and get comfortable. … We have to set the tone and if we don’t, then we’re in trouble.”
To make matters worse for the Sun, the playoff version of the Mystics is apparently pretending that the game starts over in the third quarter. In those 10 minutes, Washington is shooting 52.6% from 3-point range and outscoring Connecticut by an average of 4.7 points. In Game 3, Cloud did the most damage, scoring 9 of her 19 total points in the third quarter. However, seven different Mystics players hit at least one shot as the Mystics stretched their lead from 4 at halftime to 11 at the end of the third quarter.
Washington’s LaToya Sanders explained that the Mystics’ success in Game 3 came because “different people stepped up at different times,” mentioning Toliver, Meesseman, and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough by name. Toliver had 10 points and made both of her 3-point attempts in the first half, while Meesseman had a game-high 13 points, including three 3-pointers, in the fourth quarter. Walker-Kimbrough chipped in 7 points (1 3-pointer) and tough perimeter defense throughout the game. As Sanders put it, it was “really a collective effort all the way around.”
However, that collective effort could have been for naught if it hadn’t also shown up on the defensive end. A game after Mystics players expressed disappointment in their 1-on-1 defense and rebounding, they locked up Courtney Williams and Jonquel Jones and boxed out the Sun players at all positions. Williams and Jones combined for 15 points after scoring 54 in Game 2, and Washington won the rebounding battle by 8 after being outrebounded by 14 in Game 2. One play in the third quarter summed up the Mystics’ focus on both fundamentals: Meesseman played strong defense to deny Jones the ball inside, and when Shekinna Stricklen shot the ball from the opposite corner, Meesseman focused nearly entirely on boxing out Jones, allowing the ball to go over both of their heads and bounce harmlessly to Walker-Kimbrough rather than giving up position to pursue it.
To clinch the championship on the road in Game 4, the Mystics will have to replicate their efforts on defense and on the glass from Game 3. If the Mystics also sustain their offensive performance from the first three games, they will set WNBA Finals records for 3-pointers made per game and 3-point shooting percentage. After Game 3, Atkins shared her thoughts on the win and summed up the challenge ahead in Game 4: “It feels good to win on the road, for one. And it feels good to win in an environment like this, against a team like Connecticut. … They’re a really good team. This is going to take grit. We have to come even harder next game.”
*Includes both wins and losses. Their average margin of victory (i.e., in wins only) was 19.5 points, a WNBA record.
All stats are courtesy of WNBA.com and Across the Timeline.
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