Washington Mystics strike late to topple the New York Liberty 64-63 – WNBA Recap (Part-1)
The Washington Mystics have had a season to forget so far. With only four wins in the 19 games they played before coming into the Friday night clash against New York Liberty, there wouldn’t be many people willing to put their money
on them.
Now they must be thinking about what could have been.
Down by 9 points early in the fourth quarter, the Mystics launched a vociferous comeback to topple the Liberty 64-63 here at Verizon Centre tonight.
In a low scoring encounter, Crystal Langhorne led the Mystics with a game-high 18 points on a brilliant 8 of 9 shooting while Matee Ajavon, Washington’s third year guard, added 13 points on the night.
DeMya Walker scored 10 points for the Mystics, who took the final lead on Ajavon’s free throw with 1:02 remaining in the game. Neither team managed to score after that as Washington recorded their second win over New York in a
seven day stretch. The home team also got 11boards and 6 points from Nicky Anosike on the night.
Mystics have been very unlucky in the last two games. Taking on Indiana fever and Atlanta Dream, they put in a decent fight, but failed to deliver in the clutch, losing both the games by a meager margin of two points. However on
Friday, they ensured that the heartbreak occurs on the other side of the court.
`They're a very resilient group,'' Mystics coach Trudi Lacey said of her squad after the win. ``We've been in this situation a number of times where they fought back, got closer, but weren't able to do it. Tonight it went our way.''
Liberty were led by their point guard Leilani Mitchell, who chipped in with a season-high 18 points, six assists and four steals for Liberty. Cappie Pondexter and Plenette Pierson had a poor shooting night. The New York duo combined
for 10 of 28 shooting and finished with 13 and 11 points respectively.
The rest of the team followed their trend. By the time, the game ended, New York only converted 25 of 69 of their attempts, including 7 of 20 from the long range. The Mystics shot the same number but on 58 attempts. Both the teams
were nearly the same on rebounds and assists, but Mystics turned over the ball 5 times more than Liberty (17 -12).
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