The Washington Mystics (14-15) beat the New York Liberty (12-16) at home in Verizon Center Tuesday.
Washington started the first half hot and raced to a 31-10 lead midway through the second quarter. In fact, the deciding run of this period was the second quarter as a whole. The Mystics held the Liberty to 6-of-21 shooting, and scored 10 points off of four New York turnovers.
But that wasn't all. In the third quarter, the Mystics shot 9-of-14 from the field, forced six more turnovers, and scored 10 points off of those. Ivory Latta then scored of her team-high 16 points in the period, and made two of her trademark threes.
So the theme of the day was that the Mystics' defense was relentless. That happens to be the theme of their season on their marketing materials. So here's what they ultimately did as a team:
- Washington held New York to 17-of-59 shooting (28.8%). That also includes holding the Libs to 7-of-27 shooting at the rim.
- The Mystics scored 22 of their 79 points off of 16 Liberty turnovers. The Mystics committed 15 themselves, but New York only scored six points off of those.
- And a Four Factors for this game? Both teams were rather even in most of the three factors, but when you see the Mystics have a shot chart like theirs below, the eFG disparity shows once you take into account how well they played on defense.
| MYSTICS | LIBERTY | ||||||
| eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FTr | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FTr |
| 56.03% | 17.42% | 28.00% | 24.14% | 28.81% | 19.09% | 27.27% | 20.34% |
- Tayler Hill got to play six minutes in the end of the fourth quarter today. She didn't do much, but considering that she had a baby less than two months ago, it's impressive that she's even in some level of playing shape. Here is a postgame interview she had, and click here if you can't see the embed below.
So this is Washington's best win of the season.The Mystics head on the road to play the Indiana Fever on Friday, while the Libs host the Connecticut Sun on Friday.
And above? A Mike Thibault tell-it-how-it-is presser. Click here if you cannot see the embed on the top of the page.