The Mystics won’t make it to .500.
The Washington Mystics lost to the Atlanta Dream, 80-75 on Friday night at the Entertainment and Sports Arena.
With Kristi Toliver out, the silver lining for this game was Ariel Atkins return after being listed a Day-to-Day and ultimately probable. So the Mystics had most of their player available and were riding a couple of good wins. This game could have given them a chance to finish the season with a split, and at least non-negative record. But alas, they couldn’t overcome the Dream ability to get to the free throw line (24-from-29) despite keeping them on-check from deep (6-from-24).
Ariel Atkins didn’t look like herself as she returned from injury. She remained scoreless in 17 minutes. Delle Donne was meh with 4-for-14 from the field, and Sykes had a great game (27 points, 5-for-13 from deep, and 11-for-24 from the field in 38 minutes) but it wasn’t enough as the Mystics went to the line 17 times less than their opponents (10-for-12).
This loss particularly hurts, as winning would have guaranteed the Mystics (18-21) the superior record over the Dream (19-21) as playoff seeding is just around the corner.
Here are the highlights.
The Mystics now head to New York for their last game of the regular season on Sunday.