The Mystics drop a hard fought game, 94-84.
This game was defined early by the Mystics’ inability to take care of the ball. Nine first half turnovers turned into 14 points off of turnovers for Minnesota. Sonia Citron and Shakira Austin were the biggest culprit with four turnovers each in the first half alone. Citron and Austin forced the action too much at times and caused a lot of live ball turnovers that got the Lynx going in transition.
As the game went on, the Mystics started to do a much better
job taking care of the ball, only committing three 2nd half turnovers, and this allowed them to stay within striking distance of the Lynx the entire way, until two late game 3-pointers from Kayla McBride, putting Minnesota up 10 points, gave the Lynx the breathing room that was needed to put this one away.
Kik Iriafen finished with a team-high 19 points, while Shakira Austin contributed with 17 points. On the Lynx side, rookie sensation Olivia Miles finished with a game-high 24 points.
Mystics drop to 21-15, and move to 7th place in the standings. Washington will go to Portland to face the Fire on Sunday evening.
Takeaways
- Minnesota finished with 21 points off of turnovers for the game off of 10 Mystics’ turnovers. This was one of the biggest deciders of tonight’s game.
- One eye-opening stat is the Mystics won the rebounding battle rather decisively, 47 – 29. Minnesota points off of turnovers and shooting over 50 percent from the field negated the Mystics’ rebounding advantage in this one.
