A funny thing happened in Capital One Arena on Thursday. Sydney Johnson’s record as head coach of the Mystics finally reached .500.
The team has won so much in his second year that it has been easy to forget how much they lost in his first. Consider: The Mystics have known for weeks that playoff basketball will be happening in D.C. come late September. They have been the hottest team in the WNBA since the All-Star break. Johnson has a legitimate case for Coach of the Year. Does it not seem that surely, surely, the coach must have already shed his losing record with the franchise? It does.
Yet it did not actually happen until Thursday, the final night of the regular season, with a 101-93 win over the Sky. The game helped clinch the No. 5 playoff seed for the Mystics. And it created a remarkable symmetry across Johnson’s two years in D.C.
In his first season with the young, rebuilding Mystics, Johnson led them to a record of 16-28. And in his second season with the still-young, very-much-rebuilt Mystics, he led them to a record of 28-16.
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The results have completely flipped. Here is .500: Every loss this core experienced last year has been balanced by a win this year. This new era of franchise basketball has only just reached equilibrium.
It’s a lovely place to end the regular season. It’s not where they want to end the year.
“We want more out of these playoffs,” Johnson said on Thursday. “We want to play more basketball.”
The Mystics’ dramatic turnaround has put considerable focus on their youth. (They are, indeed, the youngest roster to qualify for the playoffs in the history of the WNBA, with six rookies and three sophomore players on the roster.) That has come with discussion about how they were not expected to be here, and how they are remarkably far ahead of schedule, and how they have an open window to contend in the future. All of that is true. But that is not quite the point for the Mystics.
As they see it: They are here now. The playoffs start on Sunday. They are ready to go.
“Coming into the season, we didn’t have anything to lose, but we knew everything that we wanted to accomplish,” Mystics rookie forward Cotie McMahon said. “And we’re here. We’re accomplishing it all.”
Their win over the Sky on Thursday was shakier than it should have been. (An unusually lackadaisical fourth quarter meant they came uncomfortably close to blowing a 25-point lead.) But it was a win all the same, and it gave them the No. 5 seed, creating a first-round showdown with the No. 4 Dream.
In some ways, these rosters are intriguingly similar. No WNBA team gets more rebounds than Washington … but the one that comes closest is Atlanta. No WNBA team shoots more within five feet of the basket than Atlanta … but the one that comes closest is Washington. An intense paint matchup is a given. But there are several key stylistic differences here.
The Dream gain their defensive edge by forcing turnovers. (They lead the WNBA with 9.1 steals per game.) The Mystics have one of the best defenses in the league without forcing many turnovers. The Dream have more three-point shooting. The Mystics have more depth.
Back in June, when these teams first played each other this season, Atlanta dominated, 109-77. It was the worst loss of the year for Washington, and the ugliest, too: The ordinarily calm Johnson was ejected. But a young team can grow fast. The Mystics did not play a game like that again. They beat the Dream when they faced them in July and in August, a bit more cohesive, confident and calculated each time. They are eager to show just how much they have grown in September.
Mystics’ notes:
- The team had a brief scare in the fourth quarter on Thursday when Shakira Austin hit the ground hard, absorbing contact for a foul. After making her free throws — and receiving a standing ovation from the crowd — she went to the locker room and did not return. There was no official medical update immediately after the game. But Johnson said that he did not see any cause for great concern: “I’m expecting that she’ll be with us,” he said about her status for Game 1, noting that she had been smiling in the locker room.
- Thursday night was the Mystics’ one and only game this season at Capital One Arena. (With the building undergoing renovations this summer, the team did not have the opportunity to host additional games downtown, as it often has in years past. Every previous home game this season was played at their standard home arena, CareFirst, in Southeast D.C.) And don’t count on that changing in the event of a deep playoff run. Cap One is booked with concerts, Wizards and Capitals games for the dates of nearly all potential future postseason games. Expect the playoff journey to run through CareFirst.
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