WASHINGTON — Last season, Washington Mystics forward Kiki Iriafen and center Shakira Austin were learning how to play together. Both dominant interior presences, they found themselves on top of each other at times, though they were still plenty effective.
Now, as they begin their second season as teammates, the Mystics’ coaching staff has emphasized better spacing in the paint. The solution is partly just recognizing when they’re crowding each other and adjusting, and it’s partly leveraging their improved perimeter skills to draw defenses out.
The results have already been obvious in the Mystics’ first two games. Iriafen and Austin have dominated in the paint, providing an effective counterweight to guard Sonia Citron. That’s made the Mystics’ “Big Three” even more formidable than they were last year, when Iriafen and Citron were WNBA All-Stars as rookies and Austin was the AP Comeback Player of the Year.
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Last season, Citron, Iriafen and Austin averaged 40.9 points per game and accounted for 51% of the Mystics’ scoring. It’s still very early this season, but so far, they’re averaging 54.5 points per game, or 68% of the team’s total.
Citron has been the top scorer in 2026, averaging 21.5 points per game on 54% shooting despite getting off to a slow start from behind the arc. Austin is averaging 17.0 points and 10.5 rebounds per game, and Iriafen is averaging 16.0 points and 14.0 rebounds.
That trio led the Mystics to a season-opening win against the expansion Toronto Tempo on Friday. Citron had 26 points on 9-for-12 shooting, including 12 in the third quarter alone.
“[I] literally didn’t even know she had a 26-ball,” Austin told reporters postgame. “I told her, ‘I can’t wait to see what a 40-ball sounds like,’ because she is a silent killer.”
“She’s incredible,” 32-year-old rookie guard Ally Wilson told The IX Basketball on Sunday. “And she looks like she’s not even trying half the time, but she just makes the game look so easy.”
Austin added 18 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks, and Iriafen had a career-high 16 rebounds to go with 12 points.
Two days later, the frontcourt carried the Mystics in an overtime loss to the New York Liberty, one of the preseason WNBA title favorites. Iriafen had 20 points, 12 rebounds and three assists, and Austin added 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. They combined to shoot 50% from the field despite facing two of the league’s top bigs in Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones.
It was the second straight game where Iriafen and Austin both had double-doubles. They did that just once in 2025, in one of the last games of the season.
“I think Kira and I do a great job of just playing off of each other, finding the hot hand, finding the mismatches, truly,” Iriafen told reporters after Sunday’s game. “We’re both post threats, so kind of just seeing who has the mismatch for the day. But I think every game, the chemistry’s getting better.”
Both of them added layers to their game in the offseason, which has helped them play off each other more effectively. Austin was finally healthy for a full offseason after battling injuries in previous years. That allowed her to do twice-daily workouts, play in the 3×3 league Unrivaled in early 2026, and play nine games in China’s top league in March and April.
“My whole offseason, I was preparing for this moment,” Austin said on Friday. “… I came back here with the mindset that this is my year to really turn it up a notch. I don’t have to get it all in one year, but my goals and standards are really high for myself, and I know the player that I can get to. So just being healthy, finally, is exciting to see.”
Iriafen also played in Unrivaled, and she has worked hard on her 3-point shot. She made one to start the Mystics’ preseason win over the Atlanta Dream on May 3 and said the coaching staff has encouraged her to keep taking them. She has also become a better offensive rebounder by developing her basketball IQ and learning what shots opponents like to take throughout her first year playing professionally.
“She’s finding different ways to impact the game,” Johnson told reporters after Friday’s game. “And some of that is running in transition, some of that is offensive rebounds, some of that is defensive versatility, but she’s starting to expand. … And that’s the makings of a really, really good player.”
One example of how all that can come together was on a possession late in overtime against the Liberty. Citron, who finished with 17 points and five rebounds, brought the ball up the court and passed it to Austin at the top of the key. Austin then threaded a difficult post entry pass to Iriafen, putting some spin on it so it wouldn’t sail out of bounds. Iriafen caught the pass and scored, but the officials had called a foul on her defender before her shot.
If it had counted, that would’ve been the seventh assist between members of the Big Three already this season. In 2025, the Mystics got 2.6 assists per game from one member of the Big Three to another.
As Iriafen, Austin and Citron reach another gear with their skills and their chemistry, they are also growing as leaders. Nine of the Mystics’ 14 players are rookies, making them the second-youngest team in WNBA history and the least experienced since 2001. Austin, at age 25, is the second-most experienced player on the team and has naturally stepped into a more vocal role. It’s something she’s felt comfortable doing for a while but hasn’t always needed to until now.
Johnson is also asking Iriafen and Citron to be vocal leaders in just their second season. Iriafen was already one of the team’s biggest cheerleaders in 2025 and has continued to inject confidence and positivity into her teammates this season.
For Citron, vocal leadership doesn’t always come naturally, but she was intentional in training camp about trying to lead in her own way — often by pulling a teammate aside for a quick conversation. Against Toronto, Johnson noticed that Citron was communicating more than she did as a rookie about what the Tempo were doing and how to attack it. And before the Liberty game, Citron was one of the players, along with point guard Georgia Amoore, who appeared to be talking the most when all the guards huddled near midcourt.
“Even though it’s an understated voice, [her teammates] are listening and hanging on every word when she speaks up in the huddles,” Johnson said on Friday. “And I just saw that at a level that probably was too much to ask of [her] last year, but she’s really growing into speaking and putting her stamp on this team.”
“She’s using her leadership on the court, talking to me constantly,” Austin added. “I feel that. And [she’s] just talking to everybody to just keep us poised, uplift us, just always saying the right thing. So I’m really proud to see that side of Soni come out this year.”
Though Johnson and Austin raved about her leadership, Citron acknowledged on Sunday that leading has been bumpy at times for her and Iriafen while they’re still learning so much about being pros themselves.
“We’re just trying to share what we learned and what we went through last year, and anything we can give the rookies,” she told reporters. “… It’s definitely far from perfect. We’re kind of — we’re learning, we’re growing ourselves, so just making sure that no matter what’s going on, we’re vocal and just trying to be good leaders. But it’s gonna take time.”
As they find their voices, Citron, Iriafen and Austin have also led by example, and their confidence on the court is rubbing off on their teammates. The Mystics closed out a tight game against Toronto on Friday in large part because Austin made four late free throws after starting the game 2-for-6 from the line and Iriafen forced a jump ball on the Tempo’s final possession.
On Sunday, the Mystics picked up right where they’d left off.
Their confidence showed in how rookie forward Angela Dugalić let three 3-pointers fly, making one off an assist from Austin. It showed in how rookie point guard Rori Harmon locked up Belgian Olympian Julie Vanloo as soon as Vanloo checked into the game, forcing Vanloo into an errant pass. And it especially showed in how 6’7 rookie center Lauren Betts attacked the 6’6 Jones and 6’11 Liberty backup center Han Xu, two days after going 0-for-4 in her WNBA regular-season debut.
Betts had watched a lot of Jones’ highlights before being drafted fourth overall this spring, so it felt “surreal” when she checked in on Sunday. But she knew being starstruck wasn’t an option, she told The IX Basketball postgame. Instead, she showed her respect by going toe-to-toe with Jones.
She scored her first WNBA points early in the second quarter by sealing off Jones in the paint, catching the ball in the midpost, taking one dribble, spinning back toward the middle and shooting a jumper over Jones.
Less than two minutes later, Betts again caught the ball in the post. This time, she took two dribbles toward the middle and sank another jumper.
“[I was] just going in confident and knowing that that’s what I do every single day: I make shots,” she said.
Betts’ confidence had ebbed and flowed at times during her college career at UCLA. But along with her own hard work on the mental side of the game, the Big Three have helped her keep a positive mindset as a pro.
“The way that they work and … the confidence that they go about themselves every single day, I feel like it just kind of affects the way that we go about ourselves,” Betts said. “And so I feel like the way that they just show up has helped us rookies so much and just continuing to look up to them, and then when they communicate, we all just have so much respect for them that we always want to listen.”
Betts finished Sunday’s game with 7 points on 3-for-7 shooting in 18:24, and the combination of her, Iriafen and Austin helped the Mystics score 54 points in the paint on Sunday. That is tied for the second-most in franchise history, per Mystics PR.
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But as much as anything, confidence was what let the Mystics stay with the Liberty and nearly pull off a massive upset. Afterward, when Iriafen was asked how they did it, she pointed out that they’d done the same thing in 2025, losing by just 9 in Brooklyn in the season finale.
“[Our players] think they’re good, which they are,” Johnson added.
Throughout this rebuilding season, the Mystics’ confidence level will be a big factor in how they fare. They had a successful opening weekend, but there will be low points and challenges. Confidence can get them through those times, like a life raft in choppy waters.
Confidence is something that Johnson, Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and the rest of the front office prioritized in their two offseasons together. They looked for players who were competitive, came from winning programs and had “some level of swagger,” as Johnson put it. On the court and in her postgame press conference, Iriafen showed all of those things on Sunday.
“Every game, we feel like we have a chance to beat whoever’s in front of us, despite what people might say,” she said. “So we know the Liberty are a great team. They are tough to guard … but we believe in our coaches’ game plan for us. We believe in each other to be able to stop them and to win the game.
“So I don’t think there’s any fear. There is no fear when we’re playing against these teams. We’re just like, ‘We want to try to outwork them and win the game.’”
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.
