Guru’s WNBA Report: Hines-Allen Leads Washington Upset of Los Angeles to Stay in Playoff Hunt While Las Vegas Downs Minnesota

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopssguru

 

Former Louisville star Myisha Hines-Allen fired 30 points and enabled the reigning WNBA champion Washington Mystics to upset the Los Angeles Sparks 80-72 Thursday night to stay in the playoff chase for the last of eight slots at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

 

The Mystics are now tied with the Dallas Wings (7-13) for eighth while the idle Atlanta Dream are ninth at 6-14.

 

The defeat means that Los Angeles (15-6) is in third 2.5 games behind the front-running Seattle Storm (17-3) and fell 1.5 games behind second-place Las Vegas (16-4) , which won its earlier game Thursday, beating the Minnesota Lynx, 104-89, putting the Lynx (13-8) into a fourth-place tie with the idle Phoenix Mercury (13-8), which has the tie-break but could fall behind for the first-round bye should the Mercury lose to Seattle Friday night at at 10 p.m. on CBSSN and Minnesota beats Indiana on Saturday.

 

Los Angeles finishes Saturday playing Las Vegas, who also have to play Seattle Sunday.  

A Sparks win Saturday and Vegas loss Sunday would flip Los Angeles into second place and the other double-bye into the semifinals, otherwise they can do no worse than third and the one-game bye to the one-game second round.

 

“The core of our this team this summer, they’ve all experienced winning, that part has been ingrained in them,” Washington coach Mike Thibault said. “Emma’s (Meesseman) played big games. ‘Myia’s played them in college.

 

“Leilani’s gotten used to our team. Everybody can see why we brought her here. The biggest offensive rebound of the game, she gets it, the smallest player on the court late in the game.

 

“They have a will. They like each other. They want each other to succeed. We have an unselfish group and just by playing hard every day you give yourself a chance. And we have some people who can make some plays.

 

“It’s fun coaching them. We make mistakes but we keep playing hard and make up for them.”

 

Dallas, which plays sixth-place Chicago at 8 on Friday on CBSSN, will be without rookie sensation Satou Sabally out of Oregon, who got injured in a fourth-quarter collision with Seattle’s Sue Bird in Wednesday’s win by the Storm. Bird will not play for the Storm Friday night in the game with Phoenix.

 

Dallas finishes Sunday with New York in one of the three remaining makeup games from the recent postponements when the WNBA players stood down two days supporting their NBA brothers in the protest over the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., as well as other social justice causes.

 

Washington finishes its two games playing New York on Saturday at noon and Atlanta, which is still alive at this hour, at 5 p.m. Sunday. The Dream (6-14) first play the Connecticut Sun (10-11) Friday night at 7 with the Sun, currently seventh, already set to play Chicago (11-10) in the 6-7 game as part of the playoff one-round opener next Tuesday.

 

“I know it’s funny, we’re playing two teams below us (to finish), but it’s a back-to-back, we did not play New York well early on … “ Thibault said. 

 

The 5^th seed will play the 8^th seed in the other game Tuesday with the winners advancing to meet the third and fourth seeds in one-game second rounds next Thursday. The top two teams have double byes to the semifinals though at the moment who gets which slot is still open.

 

The semifinals are best-of-five series as is the championship round, won by Washington a year ago when the Mystics subdued Connecticut in the fourth quarter of the decisive Game 5.

 

In Thursday’s win, Hines-Allen, set to break a WNBA record for most improved scoring average from one season to the next, was 13-for-20 in getting her 30 points and nailed three of four three-balls, several in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter when the Mystics pulled away.

 

Hines-Allen also grabbed eight rebounds and dealt four assists.

 

Emma Meesseman, the Belgian player who became the first reserve to win the playoffs MVP award last season, scored 14 points.

 

Leilani Mitchell had 10 points and nine assists, while Ariel Atkins scored eight. Once again the Mystics three-point shooting came alive with nine fired successfully.

 

“We got stops,” Mitchell said as the key to the win. “In the first quarter we did a good job closing down the paint. Second half, we helped each other. It was notable we made plays around the perimeter. We got lucky. Chelsea Gray’s layup rolled in and out.

 

“But we did execute. We got stops. `Myia’ hit some huge shots in that stretch in the fourth quarter.”

 

The Mystics began the season having lost key players with regular season MVP Elena Delle Donne out of the University of Delaware still recovering from back issues of a year ago, while Tina Charles, acquired out of New York, and Saint Joseph’s grad Natasha Cloud opted out.

 

Washington surprised, winning its first three games, but then the Mystics went into a major tailspin. At this hour they could be holding the upper hand on Dallas, but last Sunday Arike Ogunbowale nailed a three at the end of regulation and she went on to finish with 39 as the Wings prevailed in overtime and swept the two-game series.

 

Meanwhile on Los Angeles’ side, Chelsea Gray had 21 points and seven rebounds, Candace Parker had nine points, 17 rebounds, and dealt six assists, Nneka Ogwumike scored 15 and grabbed six rebounds, and Brittany Sykes, after missing a few games to injury, returned and scored 11.

 

“I think we came into this game knowing what we were playing for and I think they did, as well,” Gray said. “We were playing for two different ends of the spectrum a little bit and they were fighting for their lives. We didn’t play as we were, that’s the kind of feel and energy we have to have.”

 

Seimone Augustus became the 10^th player in WNBA history to reach 6,000 career points.

 

“It was definitely a game we wanted to win, but we didn’t,” said Los Angeles coach Derek Fisher. “We have to be adult enough to accept that as the reality now, we can’t change it.

 

“But what we can do is change the way we approach any game going forward. Hopefully (this game) will serve as a strong reminder we can’t ever allow any opponent to outwork us and still expect to win.”

 

As for the next game playing Las Vegas, he added, “Anytime you have the opportunity to go out and win you should try to do so. Regardless who the game is against, we want to go out and play the game the right way, regardless of seeding. That’s what we talked about (in the locker room).”

 

Of herself, Parker said, “When I play aggressive on the defensive and offensive end, we’re better. I’ll take this one and say, this is not going to happen again.

 

“It’s been proven all season that when we’re ready to play, it’s scary.”

 

Las Vegas Handles Minnesota

 

As mentioned above in the opening preamble, the 104-89 win by Las Vegas kept the Aces (16-4) on the heels of first place Seattle (17-3) and 1.5 games in front of Los Angeles heading into the final weekend of the coronavirus-shortened 22-game regular season.

 

The losing Lynx, tied with the idle Phoenix Mercury for fourth, need to win Saturday at noon against Indiana and also need Phoenix to lose to Seattle Friday night at 10 p.m. on CBSSN because if they both win or lose, the Mercury will get fourth seed and a first-round bye because after splitting their regular season 1-1, Phoenix has more wins against teams .500 or better to secure the second tiebreaker.

 

As for the tale of the boxscore from Thursday’s game between Las Vegas and Minnesota, Angel McCoughtry scored 22 points for the winning Aces, while Kayla McBride scored 21, firing 5 of 7 three-point attempts to help her total, A’ja Wilson scored 20, Jackie Young scored 17, Danielle Robinson had 12, and Dearica Hamby grabbed 11 rebounds.

 

Lynx rookie Crystal Dangerfield out of UConn poured down 24 points, reigning rookie of the year Napheesa Collier, another UConn alum, had 17 points and 11 rebounds, Damaris Dantas had 12 points, and Odyssey Sims scored 10.

 

The game was an ongoing coach’s reunion of sorts since Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, the former La Salle star from South Jersey in the Philadelphia suburbs, once was an assistant to Vegas coach Bill Laimbeer during his time wining championships with the now defunct Detroit Shock.

 

In fact, during his time as an aide with the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves, Laimbeer recommended Reeves for the Lynx opening and she went on to win four WNBA titles and guide the team to several other finals.

“Originally, I thought we were a middle of the pack team down here,” Laimbeer said earlier this week.

 

Indiana Beats New York

 

In one of the few games this final week with no longer any playoff ramifications, the Indiana Fever snapped its eight-game losing streak and saddled last place New York (2-18) with an 85-75 loss to sweep the two-game series and now have taken seven of eight from the Liberty.

 

Temple grad Candice Dupree had 11 points and dealt seven assists for the winning Fever (6-15), who will play their final game on Saturday against Minnesota with a chance to be a spoiler if Phoenix loses its game to Seattle Friday night.

 

Kelsey Mitchell had 18 points, Teaira McCowan scored 14, and Tiffany Mitchell scored 11.

 

New York got a career-high 21 points from Paris Kea, Kia Nurse scored 18, and Jazmine Jones grabbed 10 rebounds. Layshia Clarendon did not play due to a back injury.

 

The Liberty finish playing Washington Saturday and Dallas Sunday so they could become spoilers of sorts.

 

“I thought the whole team had energy today,” said Indiana first-year coach Marianne Stanley, the former Immaculata star who previously was a long-time assistant under Mike Thibault with Washington in addition to winning three national collegiate titles coaching Old Dominion.

 

“I thought we had contributions from a lot of people,” Stanley said. “I was really happy with our bench. I thought they stepped up. Our defense has been a work in progress all season. Today, we made a couple of adjustments in the fourth quarter and it was good.”

 

And that’s the report.