If there was one play that summed up the first half of the Washington Mystics’ first-round playoff game on Sunday, it was rookie center Lauren Betts sliding her feet and blocking a shot by Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese with 31 seconds left. It was Betts’ third block of the game on Reese, as the Mystics’ defense hounded her into 1-for-11 shooting in the half.
The play that summed up the second half looked very different. With just under seven minutes left in the game, Dream guard Rhyne Howard knifed through the heart of the Mystics’ defense, lost her shoe and still managed to spin in a reverse layup through contact.
Betts’ block had preserved a 5-point lead for the Mystics, which they took into the halftime locker room. But the Dream came out firing, scoring 29 points in the third quarter, and Howard’s shoeless and-one put them up by 16.
That surge by Atlanta decided the game, as the No. 4 seed Dream beat the No. 5 seed Mystics 92-77 in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.
Dream forward/guard DeWanna Bonner had a huge role in the win with 11 third-quarter points. It was her 99th career playoff game, whereas eight of the 11 Mystics who played (plus Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson) experienced their first WNBA playoff game.
“I’m sitting beside two players [who played] their first playoff games, and there was a lot of good stuff out there,” Johnson told reporters postgame, referring to second-year stars Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen. “So it’s just exciting. We’re disappointed about the loss, but I’m excited to take this first step forward with Kiki and Sonia and our whole group.”
The Mystics caught many people by surprise by making the playoffs at all. They were expected to be rebuilding this season; instead, they became the youngest playoff team in WNBA history, when weighting the players’ average age by minutes played.
So entering Game 1, there were questions about how the Mystics would respond to a playoff atmosphere. Would they be rattled at all, or would they play with the lightness and joy that they had throughout the regular season?
“They’ve spent their entire lives trying to get to this level — the best league in the world,” Johnson said before the game. “… Week in and week out, it’s just a high level, and now in the playoffs, it’s just the cream of the crop. So there’s going to be some natural nerves and anxiety. That’s just like, you’re being human.”
Early in Sunday’s game, the Mystics seemed to be defying expectations yet again. Howard scored on the opening possession, on a 3-pointer that bounced high off her home-court rim and obediently dropped through the net. Unbothered, the Mystics went straight to center Shakira Austin, who has been one of their leaders all season, on the next possession, and she drew a shooting foul.
The next time down the court, Mystics point guard Georgia Amoore got Iriafen, her other starting big, involved. Iriafen caught a pass from Amoore on the block, then took a few power dribbles against two defenders and scored over them. She capped the play by making a “too small” gesture with her fingers, showing her confidence early.
The Mystics went on to lead by as many as 11 points in the first half, even though Iriafen was forced out of the game with foul trouble. She picked up her second foul only three minutes into the game and her third just over a minute into the second quarter. So Johnson turned to a supersized lineup, with the 6’5 Austin and the 6’7 Betts sharing the court.
The game felt like it was played at warp speed, with both teams looking to run in transition. Austin and Betts not only kept up, but also dictated much of what happened in the paint with their defense.
Meanwhile, the Dream seemingly used up all their good fortune on Howard’s 3-pointer. They missed their next nine shots and shot just 28.6% from the field in the first half. They kept the game close by forcing 12 Mystics turnovers, which resulted in the Dream getting 10 more shot attempts than the Mystics. But Atlanta couldn’t score off of most of those turnovers, either.
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At halftime, Amoore told the Amazon Prime broadcast that she still saw room for improvement defensively. She wanted the Mystics to play better in the gaps so they could cut off Atlanta’s drives. That’s the type of team defense they’d played for much of the year, which had produced the WNBA’s second-best defense in the regular season.
Amoore’s comments ended up being prescient, as the Dream attacked the rim harder in the third quarter and the Mystics couldn’t slam the door shut. Atlanta scored 50 points in the paint on Sunday, about 15 more than the Mystics allowed on average in the regular season.
“I think we just let them get comfortable offensively,” Citron told reporters postgame. “In the first half, we did a good job of just making everything hard for them, and then in that third quarter, we just let some of our discipline slip. And they’re a great team, so once they get going, it’s really hard to stop them.”
The Mystics’ turnovers also mounted in the second half, which compounded the stress on their defense. They committed 11 second-half turnovers, which Atlanta turned into 20 points.
“They’re just a very physical team. They have good defenders,” Citron said. “But I think we kind of played into that. We can’t let them speed us up and do that. So it’s kind of on us.”
The Mystics’ 23 total turnovers were their second-most of the season, behind only a game against the Dream on July 2. That night, the Mystics had 27 turnovers — but somehow won anyway.
After that game, Johnson had shaken his head in disbelief and wondered aloud how the Mystics had gotten the win. It was always going to be too much to ask the Mystics to pull the same rabbit out of a hat in the playoffs.
Still, opponents have both praised and lamented all season how the Mystics never go away. That trait started to show up last season in Year 1 of the rebuild, memorably brought them back from a 20-point deficit on Aug. 5 against the Dallas Wings, and was evident again on Sunday. The Mystics trailed by as many as 17 points early in the fourth quarter, but a few minutes later, they went on a 9-0 run. That cut the Dream’s lead to 7 and forced Atlanta head coach Karl Smesko to call timeout.
Iriafen was a major factor during that run, grabbing four rebounds and scoring on two putbacks. She finished the game with 15 points on 7-for-14 shooting, 14 rebounds and four fouls in less than 23 minutes. Nine of her rebounds were on the offensive end, tying the Mystics’ franchise record for a regular-season or playoff game. Six Mystics now share that record, but Iriafen did it in the second-fewest minutes.
“I knew in the third quarter I could not pick up another [foul] or else I’d be sitting again,” Iriafen told reporters postgame. “And I really felt like I wasn’t able to help my team in the first half, so I wanted to do that for my teammates. … I think I was just able to kind of settle into the game and understand the way that the refs were calling the game.”
“That’s one of her big steps forwards is just kind of dealing with that that adversity through the officiating,” Johnson added. “She’s really, really composed herself well when we put her back in, whether it’s starting the third or fourth quarter. This evening, I thought she was very, very intentional. … Those are the types of things that just kind of slow [the game] down.”
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Iriafen and Citron have so often reached milestones in their WNBA careers together, from being drafted back-to-back in 2025 to making consecutive All-Star teams together. So it was only fitting that Citron carved out a slice of history on Sunday, too.
She led the Mystics with 25 points on 8-for-15 shooting, six rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Per Mystics PR, she is the first player in WNBA history to have at least 25 points, five rebounds and two blocks in her playoff debut — and only the second Mystic to do it in any playoff game, alongside Hall of Famer Elena Delle Donne.
Citron’s and Iriafen’s performances on Sunday weren’t enough to give the Mystics their first postseason win since 2019. Neither was Austin’s 12-point, 16-rebound double-double. Ultimately, the Mystics’ mistakes — whether because of inexperience, Atlanta’s pressure or both — were too much to overcome.
The loss puts the Mystics in a hole in the series that will be tough to climb out of. But they haven’t cared about being counted out all season, and they’ve never shied away from playing a top team. That’s how they beat every team in the WNBA at least once this season, and it’s how they’ll need to attack Game 2 in order to extend their season.
“Playoffs are the biggest stage. This is the stage that we want to be on,” Iriafen said. “You could tell by the atmosphere [and] the level of compete from Atlanta, from ourselves. … Now we know what it looks like. We have a taste for it. We’ll be better prepared for our game on Wednesday.”
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.
