The Washington Mystics defeated the Toronto Tempo on Tuesday, holding them to their lowest scoring game in franchise history 79-62. Temi Fagbenle, Kiki Rice, and Brittany Sykes continue to be out with injury, while the Mystics rocked a full roster with more bigs than they know what to do with.
Here is the Good, Bad, and Outlook from this game.
The Good
The Tempo finished the first half up 32-26 and led the game for nearly the entire time. Neither team was shooting well from range; halfway through the second quarter, the Tempo were 1-9 for three, and the Mystics 1-10! Due to some extremely tight defense, Mabrey was only able to get a few shots up, and most of them from deep.
Julie Allemand had a great game, sinking shots from everywhere. It’s great to see her step up when the rest of the team is struggling. She led the Tempo in scoring with 15 points, shooting 50% from 3!
Kayla Alexander (currently on hardship contract) put in some solid minutes, mostly contributing to defense. Sandy said “she did as good as she could”, coming away with 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block, and 1 assist with just over 12 minutes on the court. I know those aren’t huge numbers, but it always makes me happy seeing another Canadian on the floor!
The Bad
Washington out-scored, out-rebounded, and out-played Toronto in the second half. The Tempo’s wheels came off and there was no real path to recovery.
The Tempo continue to struggle with physicality in the paint. As seen in our previous game against the Mystics, they once again exposed our lack of frontcourt size. The Mystics out-rebounded 47-26 holding us to only 5 offensive rebounds for the entire game! FIVE!?
At times it has felt like we have enough bigs with Sabally, Izzy, and (to a point) Juškaitė; but this game really showed how much of a gap there is. Kiki, Betts, and Shakira shut us down in a big way. Having Washington block our offer to Shakira back in April really stings when looking at a loss like this.
Mabrey was getting locked down with tight defense all game and wasn’t able to find ways to scrore. The team just couldn’t move the ball and the physicality was visibly taking on a toll on morale. There weren’t any full crash-outs, just a slow melt-down.
I could go on and on about bad things, but as Julie pointed out post-game, “it’s easier to find bad stuff to say about us today because we really weren’t playing well”.
The Outlook
This was a bad game for the Tempo. Let’s put it behind us and trust that Sandy and her team have plans to rectify. Wait, I’m having deja-vu; have I said this before? Regardless, I still trust Sandy!
Atlanta is up next and they are similar to the Mystics in their paint presence. Sandy put it nicely, “we have to prepare to put up a little bit more resistance next game”. Hopefully that is resistance that doesn’t involve a flagrant two.
Temi Fagebenle is listed as probable, so fingers crossed that she is feeling good and could possibly put in some limited minutes. Her presence would be appreciated in what is sure to be a very physical game against Atlanta.
If the Tempo are going to pull out a W, they need to get fierce on the boards, move the ball, and get back to our transition offense. If not, it could be a rough few games, considering we are coming up against Minnesota, Las Vegas, and Golden State; the top 3 teams in the league. 😬
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[…] were close, including one game decided by a Sonia Citron buzzer beater, the last game played was not close. In these games, the Mystics have been able to use their gigantic and extremely skilled frontcourt […]