WASHINGTON — The Washington Mystics are entering the WNBA playoffs having won 16 of their past 20 games, including all four after the World Cup break. That winning streak lifted them to the No. 5 seed, setting up a first-round series against the No. 4 seed Atlanta Dream.
But they’re not sure how much it matters that they’re coming into the playoffs hot.
Center Shakira Austin told The IX Sports before Thursday’s regular-season finale against the Chicago Sky that she wished it mattered. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it matters at all,” she said. “Once we get to that first game, it’s just about finishing 1-0. No one cares if you went undefeated the whole year. Nobody cares if you lost [a lot] but you still made it in the playoffs.”
On the other hand, head coach Sydney Johnson told reporters on Thursday that he thought having “a good amount of confidence and momentum and flow” was a good thing for his team. (He also admitted, though, that his answer would probably be different if his team’s recent record was worse.)
It’s hard for any team to know the answer to this question. But it’s doubly hard for the Mystics because they have very little playoff experience to look back on.
This will be Johnson’s first playoff experience as a professional head coach, after he missed the playoffs as an assistant coach with the Sky in 2024 and in his first year leading the Mystics in 2025. And with one of the youngest rosters in WNBA history this season, only three of his players have any WNBA playoff experience:
| Player | Career playoff games | Deepest playoff run |
|---|---|---|
| Shakira Austin | 2 | First round (2022, 2023*) |
| Betnijah Laney-Hamilton | 26 | WNBA champion (2024) |
| Michaela Onyenwere | 4 | First round (2021, 2022) |
Those 32 combined playoff games are the lowest total for any WNBA team this season. In fact, 11 teams have a single player who has played in more than 32 career playoff games. That list includes the Dream, as veteran forward/guard DeWanna Bonner has appeared in 98 games and the rest of the roster has combined for 120 more.
For Mystics forward Michaela Onyenwere, it’s been four years since she was last on a playoff team, and she is eager to experience postseason basketball again. She has won one playoff game in her career, in 2022 with the New York Liberty.
“The WNBA is really hard, and I know that,” she told reporters before Tuesday’s game against the Connecticut Sun. “I knew that coming in obviously as a rookie, but then not being in the playoffs for so long, you’re like, ‘I just am craving that again.’ And so to be able to be with this organization … it’s been really, really fun, and just to kind of see our growth and individually as a team to see us to get to this point, I’m really excited for us.”
The Mystics claimed veteran guard/forward Betnijah Laney-Hamilton off waivers in early August in part to add postseason experience to the roster. Laney-Hamilton made her playoff debut as a rookie in 2015, played with Onyenwere in New York in 2021 and 2022, and went on to win a WNBA title with the Liberty in 2024. She is the only player on Washington’s roster who has advanced beyond the first round.
“She’s won a championship before, and she’s also been in really tough playoff series as well, which will be what we think will happen as well really soon,” Onyenwere said. “[Having her] just gives us kind of a precursor [of] what we’re going to … see.”
Laney-Hamilton did not play at all in 2025 due to a knee injury, so she is also appreciating getting back to the postseason.
“It means a lot,” Laney-Hamilton told The IX Sports after Tuesday’s game. “It feels good when you’re able to move and do all of the things. Obviously, missing the season last year was a bit of a bummer, but it gave me time to get healthy. … So now that I’m healthy and ready to go, I think it’ll be really good.”
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Austin went to the playoffs in each of her first two WNBA seasons, but the Mystics were swept both times. (She didn’t even get to play in the 2023 playoffs because of a hip injury.) So getting her first playoff win in her fifth season is top of mind.
But her previous playoff experience was so long ago that it’s not helping her prepare now.
“Honestly, I was just a completely different person back then,” she said. “Kind of just playing my role, not really going outside of what I was asked to do. So honestly, there’s been more lessons this year with how the regular season has gone.”
As a rookie in 2022, Austin was in a supporting role on a veteran-laden team, playing with stars like Elena Delle Donne, Natasha Cloud and Ariel Atkins. Now, she’s the veteran leader, defensive anchor and leading scorer on a rookie-laden team, and she’s played well enough to be in consideration for All-WNBA, WNBA Defensive Player of the Year and WNBA Most Improved Player.
“If she doesn’t get Most Improved Player. I think I’m gonna start a riot — like a literal riot,” point guard Georgia Amoore told reporters on Sunday. “… Her ability to finish plays — I love saying that the play is not done till Shakira decides it’s done. She’s gonna get a monster block, she’s going to finish under contact and she’s not gonna get the call, and she’s gonna keep playing through it.
“I think just she’s channeled her aggression … [and] it’s really the consistency that’s really just blown me away.”
Austin’s career year is one reason why the Mystics have gotten to this point, perhaps a season ahead of schedule. The Mystics were expected to be in the second year of a rebuild, and few people thought they’d make the playoffs. They not only did that, but also finished ahead of star-studded teams like the Indiana Fever and the New York Liberty with a 28-16 record.
The Mystics did that in part by emphasizing player development for everyone on the roster, from those who barely play to the star trio of Austin, Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen. The coaches preached getting better every day and never letting a learning opportunity slip by. When Johnson was asked in mid-August if he’d let himself think about October basketball yet, he looked at the reporter in disbelief.
“I’m minute-to-minute. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said a few days before the Mystics officially clinched their playoff berth. “I mean, we don’t have any of this in hand. Our players are giving me stuff because I’m saying ‘if we make the playoffs.’ They’re saying ‘when we make the playoffs.’ I think let’s stay grounded; let’s stay in the moment. … That’s how we’ve gotten here.”
The Mystics’ defense has also carried them to the playoffs. They allowed just 103.3 points per 100 possessions this season, which ranked second in the league behind the No. 2 seed Golden State Valkyries. That’s uncharted territory for a young team: The Mystics are 5.1 points better defensively than the WNBA average this season, which is a gap that none of the league’s youngest teams since 2009 has been able to match.
The Mystics’ defense isn’t built on forcing turnovers. Instead, they defend as a unit and make shots extremely difficult. They are also an excellent rebounding team — outrebounding opponents in 40 of their 44 games — so opponents aren’t getting many second chances.
“I just really trust this group to be in great position, to not gamble and not get into disadvantaged situations,” Johnson said before Thursday’s game. “So we … really trust the toughness and togetherness that it’s our five versus your five. We’re going to make you take a tough shot, and we’re going to corral that rebound. And if we can do that over and over and over and over again, that could be good enough.”
Though their offense isn’t as strong as their defense, the Mystics have dominated in the paint. A focus in the offseason was adding more size and length to the roster, and now the 6’5 Austin, the 6’3 Iriafen and 6’7 rookie Lauren Betts are making life difficult for every opponent. The Mystics are scoring 42.9 points in the paint and allowing just 35.4, both of which are second-best in the league.
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Perhaps most of all, the Mystics have learned in real time this season how to win. They have played a league-high 122 clutch minutes, which are when the score is within 5 points in the last five minutes of regulation or in overtime. And in their 27 games that have had clutch minutes, they’ve gone 18-9.
“How we’ve kind of approached the entire season is we haven’t really known everything, but … we’ve just attacked it really head-on,” Onyenwere said.
The Mystics have learned to stay poised when the score isn’t close, too. They erased a 20-point deficit to stun the Dallas Wings in early August. And in a 16-point win against the Fever on Sunday, the Mystics kept their composure in the third quarter as Indiana started to trim a 26-point deficit and as referees’ whistles made the game extremely choppy.
“Last year, or maybe even earlier this year, we would have been reeling from that,” Johnson said postgame. “… This team’s really grown up a lot.”
The turning point for these Mystics was on July 20, when they beat the Valkyries for the first time in Johnson’s tenure. Entering that game, the Mystics were 12-12, but the victory was the first in a seven-game winning streak. That stretch elevated the Mystics from a playoff hopeful to a threat to end anyone’s season.
Since July 20, the Mystics have noticeably improved at both their strengths and their weaknesses. They are grabbing a league-best 56.0% of all available rebounds, up from 52.7% before the win over Golden State. They’re also fouling less, which has further helped their defense, and scoring even more in the paint.
Meanwhile, their offense has improved enormously, from averaging 98.4 points per 100 possessions before July 20 to 112.1 since. They’ve cut down on their turnovers and shot 37.9% from 3-point range, up from 27.8% before July 20. In particular, Amoore and Citron — the two Mystics who attempt the most threes per game — have been much more accurate from 3-point range since July 20.
“I was cashing out in practice, and now it’s just making its way to the games,” Amoore said after shooting 3-for-4 from distance on Sunday. “And I’m not even mad because we’re hitting our strides at the right time. I’d rather hit them now and when they matter than early on, when they don’t really matter.”
Looking at the Mystics’ growth since midseason, it’s no surprise that both Johnson and Citron declared on Thursday that the team is ready for the playoffs.
“I think we’ve been ready for a while,” Johnson said.
Now comes the preparation. Citron said the team would be intentional between Thursday night and Sunday about recovering physically and preparing mentally. The Mystics went 2-1 against the Dream this season, but they lost badly in their only game in Atlanta back on June 6.
Read about Atlanta: 5 keys for the Dream to avoid a repeat of last year’s playoffs
The Mystics’ mindset for the series can be boiled down to two words: “Be us.” Onyenwere, Laney-Hamilton and Austin all spoke in recent days about not wanting to deviate from what got them this far. They have two more wins than any other team since July 20, and they’re one of only three teams that went 4-0 to end the regular season.
“We focus on being together. We focus on playing tough defense, being super physical. That’s been our identity the entire season, and so it’s like, why stop now?” Onyenwere said after Thursday’s game.
That message is how Johnson will convey to his players that, while most of them don’t have postseason experience, they have all the knowledge they need. Rather than emphasizing what experiences will be new in the playoffs, he’ll focus on everything that hasn’t changed.
“We’re not going to lean into the firsts,” he said. “We’re going to lean into, ‘OK, what do we have to work on?’ … So rather than keep necessarily the pressure of this magical moment of playoffs, it’s really like, ‘Everything that we’ve done to date has positioned us here. Let’s continue to get better, smooth out our weaknesses and see what we got.’”
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Sports. The IX Sports’ editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
Go Mystics! This article was very well written.