All season, Washington Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson has preached the importance of his players getting more experience against WNBA competition, game by game. The Mystics are the least experienced team in the league with an average of 1.85 seasons played. That’s nearly three full seasons less than the median team and more than 5.5 less than the most experienced team.
“There’s no shortcut to it,” Johnson told reporters before a game against the Toronto Tempo on June 12. “… We need these lessons.”
Fourteen games in, the Mystics have learned a lot about themselves. Many of those games have been close, including two overtime battles in their first three games of the season. Several of their eight rookies have settled into their roles and made key contributions, and their two veterans, 26-year-old Michaela Onyenwere and 25-year-old Shakira Austin, are having career years.
But over the past five games, the Mystics have been learning even more from the game reps they’re getting — and showing more of the payoff. Four of those games have come down to the wire, and they’ve won three, including Friday’s 86-83 win over the New York Liberty on the road.
The five-game stretch began against the Indiana Fever on June 8, when the Mystics came back from a 17-point deficit, only to see Fever star Caitlin Clark nail a game-winning 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds left.
“It’s hard to win in the W, and playing all the way through, I thought we learned a lot,” Johnson said afterward. “I was incredibly proud of us in terms of our fight. We’ve had moments where we’re on the ropes, and to see us show that Mystics DNA — the togetherness, the toughness — we don’t even get to that moment if we don’t show who we are. So we just showed D.C., the nation, ourselves just who we are on a day-in and day-out basis. …
“And then, yeah, you got to do whatever you can until the final buzzer, and we just came up short one possession there.”
Then came the game against Toronto, in which the Mystics squandered an 18-point lead before second-year guard Sonia Citron hit the winning jump shot with 0.5 seconds remaining. Just before Citron’s shot, when the Mystics trailed by a point with 2.1 seconds left, they had only a 7.6% chance of winning, per ESPN Analytics.
After the Mystics were blown out in New York on Sunday, they used a 10-1 run in the final four minutes to beat the Connecticut Sun by 7 points on Wednesday. The game against the Sun featured eight lead changes and six ties.
Friday’s rematch against New York was possibly the most chaotic of all, with 12 lead changes and 19 ties. When the game started, the Mystics only had about a 20% chance to win, and that fell to 4.4% when New York led by 8 points with 4:01 left.
But the least experienced team in the WNBA ripped off a 17-6 closing run against a WNBA title contender, capped by a layup from second-year forward Kiki Iriafen with 27 seconds left. That ended a streak of 12 straight losses to the Liberty across the regular season and playoffs.
“It’s huge, huge signs of growth,” Johnson said afterward. “… We’re trying to find ways where we can get better, and that’s in the game, but that’s also individually. So it’s just all part of this journey we’re on together, and I’m just really proud of them [and] how they applied some of the things that we’ve learned.”
In Johnson’s eyes, Friday’s win wasn’t just significant because it improved the Mystics’ record to 7-7 or because it gave the players a boost ahead of two games against the first-place Minnesota Lynx. He said on Wednesday that wins like the ones they’ve have had lately go “into that memory bank,” so the players can draw from them in the future.
And in a season where the Mystics are prioritizing player development, how the Mystics have won these close games — and battled back against the Fever — has been especially encouraging. They’ve limited their turnovers, tuned into the scouting report, made defensive stops with the game on the line and seen several players step up. All of that is essential for long-term success in the WNBA.
Overall, the Mystics are averaging 16.1 turnovers per game, which is second-worst in the league behind Indiana. They took care of the ball better against Connecticut and New York but committed 22 against Toronto and 15 against Indiana. Yet in all four games, they’ve kept their turnovers in check with the game on the line, committing three or fewer in the fourth quarter of each game.
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Johnson has also seen his team remember and apply the scouting report in big moments, including down the stretch against New York. That can be challenging for a team with so many rookies because every scouting report is brand new and games are so frequent, whereas veterans remember some of what to expect from previous seasons.
The Mystics staff is teaching the scout in full-team meetings and film sessions, but also in position group meetings and individual meetings. Though the players are young, the staff values their input, too.
“What’s great is they’re engaging with us. It’s an open floor,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to just talk at them, and I think some of that learning then gets a little bit more ingrained because there’s some back-and-forth and there’s, ‘Hey, Coach, this is what I saw.’ And … it’s been an enjoyable process to see them take all of that and then transfer it to the floor.”
That understanding of the scouting report has helped the Mystics’ defense improve in recent weeks. Over the past five games, the Mystics are allowing 104.0 points per 100 possessions, down from 108.1 over the first nine games. They’re also closing out defensive possessions with rebounds more often and committing about four fewer fouls per game.
Opponents are shooting better against the Mystics in fourth quarters than they are overall, but lately, the Mystics have gotten stops at some of the most critical times.
On Friday, for example, they got a game-saving stop after Iriafen’s layup and a subsequent free throw gave them a 3-point lead with 11.8 seconds left. Iriafen switched on the perimeter to defend Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu and moved her feet well, forcing Ionescu to miss a 3-pointer with 4.4 seconds left. After an offensive rebound, Mystics guard Cotie McMahon recovered well to contest Liberty forward Satou Sabally’s desperation three at the buzzer.
The Mystics have also gotten timely contributions up and down the roster. Iriafen sprained her ankle against Indiana and didn’t return until Friday, and Austin also missed Wednesday’s game against the Sun. That left rookies Lauren Betts and Angela Dugalić as the only two true post players against Connecticut. Both rose to the challenge of facing 6’9 center Brittney Griner and the rest of the Sun frontcourt. Betts in particular has elevated her game lately, averaging 10.2 points on 66.7% shooting in her last five games.
“I’m really proud of the people who stepped up from the bench,” Onyenwere told reporters after Iriafen went down on June 8. “That’s the way our team is built is like, ‘Hey, you got to be ready for your time.’”
Second-year guard Lucy Olsen has also been a bright spot recently, playing 31 total minutes in the last two games after getting just 44 total minutes in the previous 12. She gives the Mystics another ball-handling option off the bench and scored 6 points against the Sun.
Meanwhile, the Mystics’ stars have shone. Citron had the buzzer-beater against Toronto and combined with Onyenwere to score 48 of the team’s 88 points against the Sun. And Iriafen had 20 points on Friday, including a game-high 9 in the fourth quarter.
None of those were bigger than the 2 she scored with 27 seconds left. The game was tied at 83, and the Mystics had to improvise late in the shot clock. Point guard Georgia Amoore passed the ball to Citron on the perimeter, and Citron drove by Liberty center Jonquel Jones. Liberty forward Breanna Stewart sensed the danger and left Iriafen to help, but Citron punished her by lobbing the ball to Iriafen for a layup.
“[That was] definitely not what was supposed to happen,” Citron told reporters postgame. “I think there was a bunch of mismatches. … I know Georgia was trying to get me the ball for the mismatch, and then I drove, and I saw Stewie step up, and I saw Kiki behind her, so I knew that was an easy layup for Kiks. So it worked out.”
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The Mystics have now played 40 “clutch minutes,” which are when the score is within 5 points and there are five minutes or fewer left in regulation or overtime. That is the third-most clutch minutes in the WNBA, even though the Mystics have played the second-fewest total minutes. The lessons from those high-pressure situations are accumulating for this young team, which partly explains their recent success.
But the Mystics won’t get ahead of themselves by focusing too much on the wins. Those are satisfying, but player development is the reward they’re chasing the most.
“[We’re] keeping the big picture in mind,” Johnson said after the win over Toronto. “… We understand that it’s not just these games, but it’s all the moments in between that we’re pouring into [the players], that they’re taking the coaching, they’re learning from mistakes, they’re learning from successes as well. And so that’s where I try to center myself.”
At the same time, there are moments where Johnson can’t help but picture what this team could look like in a few years — and he likes what he sees. “There’s a whole lot of goodness in there,” he said on Friday.
Though the Mystics aren’t there yet, Johnson feels the same way about what he sees on the practice court every day. He’s thrilled about how his young roster is starting to settle itself in a deep and experienced league. The clearest proof of his mindset came on June 8, from what Johnson said less than an hour after Clark’s game-winner.
“I might have the best job in the W,” he said. “I mean, it’s just really fulfilling.”
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.
