WASHINGTON — With eight rookies on the roster, Washington Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson has gotten used to leading his players through situations that are new to most of them. But on Sunday, the Mystics faced something that even Johnson hadn’t experienced before: a quadruple overtime game.
“This is history, and a new one for me,” Johnson told reporters postgame when asked if he’d ever played or coached in a game with so many overtimes.
The 124-123 win over the Portland Fire lasted three hours and 35 minutes, and the four overtimes tied the WNBA record for the most extra periods.
The only other four-overtime game in WNBA history was in July 2001, when the Mystics beat the Seattle Storm on the road 72-69. Ten of the 13 players on the Mystics roster and seven of the 14 Fire players weren’t born yet when that game took place, and Johnson was just four years out of college and playing professionally in Italy.
“I didn’t even know that was allowed,” 22-year-old guard Sonia Citron told reporters postgame.
Sunday’s game had 21 ties and 12 lead changes, and more than half of each came in overtime. The Mystics needed to score the most points in franchise history to win by the narrowest of margins.
“Thank you, God, the game is over,” forward Kiki Iriafen thought to herself as the final buzzer sounded.
At times, it felt like the game would never end. The Mystics led by as many as 12 points in the opening six minutes, but the Fire promptly erased that and led by 3 after the first quarter. Portland stretched its lead to 9 in the second quarter, but the Mystics fought back to take a 1-point lead with 1:36 left in regulation. That was their first lead in nearly three full quarters.
But Portland had an answer in the form of guard Carla Leite, who banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
The game went back and forth through the overtime periods. Leite hit another game-tying shot late in the first overtime to force a second overtime, a layup from Citron prompted a third, and a midrange jumper from Portland guard Bridget Carleton forced a fourth. Finally in the fourth overtime, Leite missed a 6-foot floater as time expired and a layup from Citron with 21.4 seconds left stood up as the game-winner.
Related reading: Fire’s historic 4OT loss offered lessons for the future — and hope
Though the game took its toll on players both mentally and physically, it was a better learning opportunity for the Mystics than anything Johnson could’ve dreamed of. They are the second-youngest team in WNBA history, with an average age of 23.5 years old as of Sunday. Johnson has talked often about how the biggest thing his team needs right now is game reps and how those reps go into players’ “memory bank” for the future. And instead of getting 40 minutes of reps and lessons for the future on Sunday, the Mystics got 60.
“The best way to learn is just going through it,” said Citron, who came to the postgame press conference with scratches on her arms and a bag of ice on her knee. “… We’re kind of getting thrown into the fire, but … I think we’ll just be better for it in the end.”
Three Mystics set career highs in scoring in the win: Citron had 32 points, wing Michaela Onyenwere had 30 and Iriafen had 27. That made Citron and Onyenwere the first pair of Mystics ever to score 30 or more points in the same game, per Mystics PR. But it didn’t always look like Citron would get close to that: With six minutes left in regulation, Citron had just 7 points before scoring 25 in the game’s final 26 minutes.
Citron ended up playing a game-high 52 minutes and 33 seconds, the sixth-most minutes played in a game in WNBA history. She did not sub out at all after the third quarter.
In addition, center Shakira Austin set a career high and Iriafen tied her career high in assists with six each. They also combined for 24 rebounds, often coming up with the ball in crowds to give the Mystics more possessions. One particularly important rebound came with about 30 seconds left in the third overtime. Iriafen read the path of the shot and moved out of her area to steal a rebound from Fire forward Frieda Bühner. Then, with three Fire players surrounding her, she avoided being tied up and drew a foul.
“Kiki’s a beast,” Onyenwere told reporters postgame. “I was telling her, I was like, ‘Girl, we wouldn’t have won if you didn’t get all those rebounds.’ She just kept us in plays, kept us in possessions. There was times where there was two, three people hanging on her, and she was the one who came up with the ball. … She’s just such a vital piece for what we’re trying to do, and everything that we’re trying to do.”
Another player Onyenwere said the Mystics couldn’t have won without was rookie point guard Alicia Flórez. Flórez didn’t play at all in the first half, but after starter Georgia Amoore left the game midway through the second quarter with knee soreness, Flórez played 33:45, including all but 15 seconds of the four overtimes. The former developmental player finished with 8 points on 4-for-7 shooting, five steals, four assists, three rebounds and a block.
Perhaps the biggest play Flórez made came with about two minutes left in the first overtime, shortly after the Fire had taken the largest lead they’d have in any overtime period at 4 points. Iriafen had made a driving layup to cut the deficit to 2, and on the ensuing Fire possession, the ball got knocked loose in the paint. Leite got it and tried to pass it out to the perimeter from her knees, but Flórez chased after the ball, dove on the floor to secure it before a Portland player could pick it up, and popped it up to Onyenwere, who started a two-on-one fast break that Citron finished.
“We don’t necessarily ever signal Player of the Game or anything like that, but we definitely gave [Alicia] a shoutout after the game,” Johnson said. “… From the moment she’s gotten here, she’s played like a warrior.”
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It took a lot for a young team to stay focused for over 3 1/2 hours — nearly twice the length of a typical basketball game. Part of the motivation was ending the team’s two-game losing streak, but another part was not having all its effort count for nothing on the scoreboard.
“I feel like we worked too hard to let the game slip away,” Iriafen told The IX Basketball afterward.
Onyenwere’s and Citron’s voices were the most frequent in the huddles as the game wore on, encouraging their teammates to keep pushing, Johnson said.
“I usually don’t ever shut up in timeouts, so I just was trying to just keep us afloat,” Onyenwere said. “I mean, I think that we knew we needed to win this game. We obviously had dropped a couple that we felt like we wanted back a little bit, and … it was so close at the end. It’s like, ‘Why not us? Why not go and get it?’ So yeah, I just tried to keep everybody’s spirits up and, yeah, go get the game.”
“Their togetherness was off the charts,” Johnson said. “… That connection and feeling towards each other — real affection there — I think that added a little bit of wind to their sails, because I’m not sure how else we could get it done.”
As the overtimes mounted, though, you could see the toll the game was taking. Iriafen bent over at the waist after the buzzer sounded to end the second overtime. After the third overtime, which ended with Citron missing a 3-pointer at the buzzer, Citron puffed her cheeks out, and Flórez put her hands on her head.
Neither team could score for the first 2:24 of the fourth overtime, as players’ legs turned to jelly. “Oh my gosh, my legs hurt,” Onyenwere exclaimed in the Mystics’ celebratory video just after the game ended.
Every time the Mystics scored in the last few overtime periods, the crowd seemed to cheer like it was letting out a deep breath with every scream. That was especially true as the Mystics made a final, nerve-wracking defensive stand in the fourth overtime, getting Leite to miss her first shot in three tries with the game on the line. Flórez put both her fists in the air, then bent over, resting her hands on her knees.
The players slowly moved toward halfcourt, where they usually huddle after home games. They wrapped their arms around one another in a tighter circle than usual, seemingly holding one another upright.
“We just did like a group hug,” Citron said. “I don’t think we even had energy to yell [or] celebrate. It was just like a, ‘It’s finally over.’”
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When the huddle dispersed, guard/forward Darianna Littlepage-Buggs, Amoore and point guard Rori Harmon found Flórez to praise her efforts. Then Iriafen came over and, recognizing how exhausted Flórez was, gave her a piggyback ride to the locker room so she wouldn’t have to walk. As Iriafen hoisted Flórez on her back, Iriafen let out a triumphant scream.
“I’m someone who loves to lift up my teammates — like, physically, too,” Iriafen said. “And that makes me so happy, just pouring into them. [Alicia] has been great, and … when [the coaches] said, ‘Li, we need you,’ she was there. …
“I just want to be a teammate that all my teammates can rely on and know that regardless, Kiki’s always going to show you love and pour into you. So that was fun, and I love picking up people. So, bonus.”
That gesture was a prime example of the togetherness Johnson loved seeing in his team — that Iriafen could play nearly 48 minutes of extremely physical basketball, figuratively carry the team in stretches, and still have the energy and desire to literally put a teammate on her back for another minute or two.
From there, it was time to start the recovery process. Asked how many ice baths they’d take after their press conference, Onyenwere sighed and looked over at Citron.
“A lot,” Onyenwere said.
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Basketball. The IX Basketball’s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
