Washington Mystics win WNBA title with Game 5 defeat of Connecticut Sun – The Washington Post, The Washington Post

A mosaic of pure joy unfurled on the court at Entertainment and Sports Arena on Thursday night as the Mystics claimed their first WNBA championship with an89 – 78 win over the Connecticut Sun. The final game of the best-of-five WNBA Finals series was a choppy, foul-laden affair that kept Washington from playing its preferred style, but three all-stars – an unimaginable constellation of talent for a once-middling team – grabbed hold of the game and willed, with rebounds and bank shots and tough positioning in the paint, the Mystics to a win.

With 50 seconds left and victory all but sealed, the home crowd started chanting “Run it back,” Washington’s unofficial slogan after it reached the finals for the first time last year but was swept in three games by the Seattle Storm. Many in the stands had waited more than two decades to see the scene before them, so they remained on their feet as Washington held the silver trophy aloft.

The Mystics’ first title comes 22 seasons after the franchise was founded as an expansion team in 1998, the WNBA’s second year. That season the team posted a 3 – 27 record that portended years of disappointment and unmet potential: Before Mike Thibault took over as the team’s coach and general manager in 2013, the team had never finished with a winning record in consecutive seasons.

A new era began in 2017 when all-stars Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver were added to the roster; a year later, the team advanced to the finals for the first time. This season, the team moved into its own arena in Southeast Washington, trading a cavernous venue it shared with other teams – as well as numerous other events that at times forced the Mystics to find other places to play their home games – for a more intimate and energetic atmosphere.

On the court, the pieces fell into place: The Mystics finished the regular season with a 26 – 8 record, the best in team history. Playing a freewheeling, fast-paced style of basketball, they made a case as the best offensive team the league had ever seen, winning a record eight games by 25 or more points and smashing the marks for three-point baskets and assists per game. Delle Donne was named league MVP, becoming the first WNBA player to earn the honor with two different teams – she first won in 2015 with Chicago.

A league championship was the final accolade missing from her résumé , as well as from Thibault’s.

Delle Donne’s path to the title was marred by injuries and debilitating, reoccurring bouts of Lyme disease; she’s played through major injuries on all three of her trips to the WNBA Finals. For Thibault, 69, who is the winningest coach in the league history, it took four trips to the finals with two different teams before he clinched a league championship 17 years into his WNBA career.

“Feels good,” Thibault said simply, during the trophy ceremony.

It was Washington’s dual MVP’s who powered the Mystics to their win: Delle Donne, 30, had 21 points, and Meesseman, named the MVP of the finals after the game, had 22 off the bench.

Toliver and Cloud added 18 points apiece.

The Mystics relied on a late push in the fourth quarter for their win; the most formidable three-point offense made just four shots from behind the arc in the game. They barely outrebounded the Sun, 32 – 31, and went to the foul line seven more times. But Washington’s win was about will.

With less than eight minutes to play and Washington leading 72 – 70 thanks to a steal from Meesseman that led to a driving layup by Cloud, the Mystics grasped a small window of opportunity and yanked it open with all their might. With the Sun’s Alyssa Thomas in her face, Delle Donne banked in a shot that had even Thomas dropping her hands to her side in disbelief, or perhaps exasperation. Then Toliver drove for a layup to make it 76 – 72. Another bank shot from Delle Donne gave the Mystics a six-point lead with 3: 34, tying Washington’s largest lead of the night to that point.

From there, the Mystics inched away. The Sun had one field goal in the final 5: 39.

George Washington University graduate Jonquel Jones led Connecticut with 25 points and Thomas, a Maryland alum, scored 21, but the Sun couldn’t create opportunities down the stretch.

The game started unlike any other in the series; this time, the first quarter wasn’t a runaway. The Mystics started off moving the ball well, but what stood out most was Delle Donne’s movement early. She was driving to the basket and active in the paint more than she has been since she left Game 2 with back spasms.

Delle Donne was just about the only thing moving well in the first half. The first half of Game 5 was the sloppiest the finals had seen so far – Washington’s shot poorly, with their short-range jumpers clanking against the rim and not falling and their three’s sailing way off target, and the officials called a tight game that kept both teams from establishing any real rhythm on offense.

Still, the Sun led by just one point, 43 – 42, at halftime. Jones and Alyssa Thomas combined for 25 points while Delle Donne led the Mystics with 10. The Sun started the third quarter with a 10 – 2 run that sucked the energy out of the crowd until Jones went to the bench with her third foul midway through the quarter and the Mystics grouped a few defensive stops with some big buckets from Delle Donne and Meesseman.

Meesseman’s 11 points in the period ended up salvaging the quarter for Washington. Not satisfied, she added another 11 in the fourth.

In-game updates

by Emily Giambalvo

(Final: Mystics) , Sun 78

The Washington Mystics have won their first WNBA championship, defeating the Connecticut Sun in the winner-take-all Game 5. The Mystics, who lost to Seattle in the WNBA Finals last year, capped a season in which they set a franchise record for victories and several league marks for offensive production. The title is also the first for two-time league MVP Elena Delle Donne and for Mike Thibault, the winningest coach in league history.

Emma Meesseman, who led the Mystics in Game 5 with 22 points and averaged 17 .8 points off the bench for the series, was named WNBA Finals MVP. Delle Donne finished with 21 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Jonquel Jones of the Sun led all players with 25 points and added nine rebounds. Alyssa Thomas added 21 points, 12 rebounds and six assists for Connecticut.

Fourth quarter, 2: 41 left: Mystics 80, Sun 72

Washington scored eight consecutive points within a 13 – 2 run, creating their largest lead of the game . Elena Delle Donne has scored 21 points for Washington.

Fourth quarter, 4: 23 left: Mystics 76, Sun 72

After Connecticut led through the entire third quarter, Washington grabbed a four-point lead with fewer than five minutes to go. Elena Delle Donne’s go-ahead score, followed by a basket from Kristi Toliver to extend the lead, forced a Connecticut timeout. The Mystics have outscored the Sun, 14 – 8, in the fourth quarter.

End of third quarter: Sun 64, Mystics 62

Connecticut has struggled to guard Emma Meesseman, who has scored a team-high 16 points off the bench. Eleven of those points have come in the third quarter. Her layup with 2: 10 to go tied the game for the first time since late in the second quarter. The Sun still leads thanks to Alyssa Thomas’s layup with 1.4 seconds left in the third. The Mystics, who made more three-pointers this regular season than any other team in the league, are just 2 of 15 from deep.

Third quarter, 3: 54 left: Sun 56, Mystics 54

Connecticut’s Jonquel Jones is on the bench with four fouls. She has 19 points and six rebounds. With Jones on the bench, Washington has climbed back. Elena Delle Donne’s layup brought the Mystics within two, forcing the Sun to take a timeout. Delle Donne has scored 15 points, her most since the first game of this series as the Mystics increasingly look to her.

Third quarter, 6: 39 left : Sun 53, Mystics 44

Early in the third quarter, Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas notched her third assist of Game 5 and her 35 th of this series, breaking the record for assists in a WNBA finals. Chelsea Gray of the Los Angeles Sparks previously held the all-time high with her 34 assists in 2017. With fewer than seven minutes to go in the third quarter, Connecticut grabbed a nine-point lead, the largest of the game, which forced a Washington timeout.

Halftime: Sun 43, Mystics 42

The fast-paced and back-and-forth opening two quarters of play ended with a one-point Connecticut lead. Washington began Game 5 with abysmal three-point shooting, making just 2 of 12 attempts, an unusually poor mark for this team. Connecticut also made only two from deep, but had attempted only six.

Connecticut already slipped into foul trouble, most notably starting forward Jonquel Jones, who received her third late in the second quarter . As a team, Washington has 10 fouls compared to Connecticut’s eight, but no Mystics player has more than two. From the field, the Sun has shot 48. 6 percent, while the Mystics have shot 43 .2 percent.

Elena Delle Donne has played up to her billing as the league MVP, showing little sign of her recent injury. She leads the Mystics with 10 points. Jones has a game-high 13 points, but her early fouls could keep her off the floor at times through these final 20 minutes of play.

Second quarter, 31 3 left : Sun 43, Mystics 40

Connecticut’s Jonquel Jones, who has already scored 13 points in Game 5, picked up her third foul just before the end of the second quarter. Both teams had only hit one three-pointer apiece before Washington’s Emma Meesseman nailed one to secure a short-lived Mystics lead. However, Jones responded from deep just 10 seconds later as Coach Curt Miller opted to briefly keep her on the floor despite the early foul trouble. Jones headed to the bench not long after she lifted the Sun back ahead of Washington.

Second quarter, 5: 39 left: Sun 32, Mystics 30

This game has been tied seven times already, and Washington still can’t hit shots from three. Through the playoffs, the Mystics have averaged 10 .8 three-pointers per game, but they’ve missed all but one of their 10 attempts so far in Game 5. The Mystics have grabbed plenty of second chances, though, with five offensive rebounds.

Turtle power

End of first quarter: Mystics 23, Sun 20

Washington and Connecticut played the tightest first quarter of the series, but the Mystics have the three-point advantage. The Mystics have shot 9 of 20 from the field overall but just 1 of 7 deep despite being one of the best three-point-shooting teams in the league. Jonquel Jones finished the quarter with a game-high six points as she’s playing well on the inside. The Mystics are narrowly winning the rebounding battle thus far, with the most significance difference between the teams showing up in fouls called on Connecticut’s starters.

Early foul trouble

Connecticut forward Alyssa Thomas picked up her second foul with three minutes to go in the first quarter. Thomas had played all 40 minutes in every game of this series, but she headed to the bench early in what has become the closest first quarter between these teams. Morgan Tuck entered the game in Thomas’s place. Another Sun starter, forward Shekinna Stricklen, received her second foul late in the first quarter, which will likely force Connecticut to rely more on its bench than usual.

First quarter, 3: 31: Mystics 17, Sun 15

Through this series, the team ahead at the end of the first quarter has gone on to win every game. In each of those four games, the eventual winner had a double-digit advantage at the end of the quarter, but Game 5 has opened in back-and-forth fashion. Washington’s fluid offense has played well with good ball movement, and Mystics star Elena Delle Donne is playing the best she has since her injury.

Starting lineups

There are no changes to either team’s starting lineup for Game 5:

A pregame fashion statement

Kristi Toliver arrived at Entertainment and Sports Arena wearing her Maryland basketball jersey, a nod to her title-winning past.

While a freshman at Maryland, Toliver hit a late three-pointer to force overtime against Duke in the 2006 NCAA championship. She added two free throws with 35 seconds left in overtime. The Terps beat Duke, 78 – 75,to earn the program’s only national title.

Pregame reading

by Ava Wallace

The WNBA will crown a first-champion Thursday night when Washington hosts Connecticut in a decisive Game 5. Neither the Mystics nor the Sun have ever captured a title, a fact that has been something of a monkey on the back of Washington Coach-General Manager Mike Thibault, whose first season with the Mystics was in 2013 and before that coached Connecticut for 10 years. This is Thibault’s fourth trip to the WNBA Finals and likely the best chance he has to win a championship – this Washingtonrosteris probably the strongest he’s ever coached.

The Mystics, who are playing in their second consecutive finals, have been the most dominant team in the WNBA all season behind a fast-paced, fluid offense that helped them breaknumerous league and franchise records. They’re led by league MVP Elena Delle Donne, who became the first women’s pro basketball player to join the50 – 40 – 90 clubthis season, and all-stars Kristi Toliver and Emma Meesseman.

Delle Donne was second in the league in scoring averaging 19 .5 points per game this season but has been playing hurt most of this series – she’s got a herniated disk in her back that’s pinching on a nerve – and has averaged 12 points in the past two games. Even so, her presence on the court alone helps Washington. Delle Donne, 30, is considered one of the best talents in a generation in basketball, but like Thibault, she too is looking for her first WNBA title.

A win for the Sun would be just as big of a milestone in Connecticut, which returned to the WNBA Finals this year for the first time since 2005. The Sun has almost as much scoring prowess as Washington, with 6-foot-6Jonquel Jonesleading the way andAlyssa ThomasandCourtney Williamsbacking her up.

The keys to a win are about the same for both teams: Whoever wins the battle on the boards and whichever team gets out to a good start will have a huge leg up in the quest for a WNBA Title. For the Mystics, it’ll be important to limit Jones’s touches, especially in the paint, and move the ball well on offense. For the Sun, the goal is aggressive defense and to not let Washington get hot from the three-point line, especially with the Mystics playing on their home court.

Read more: