Mystics’ shooting touch disappears

Marianne Stanley sat silently for nearly a minute and stared at the box score, a furrowed brow framing her exasperated face.

The Washington Mystics coach couldn’t comprehend all the numbers that added up to her team’s 65-56 loss to the New York Liberty yesterday before 13,869 at MCI Center. The loss officially eliminated Washington from the postseason.

“I don’t think we really came ready to play tonight, and I have no explanation for why,” Stanley said. “I sensed it in the first half. I didn’t think our energy was good.”

After playing one of its best all-around games of the year in a 92-81 win over league-leading Detroit on Wednesday, Washington struggled mightily against a New York team that had lost six of eight.

Chamique Holdsclaw led the Mystics with 13 points and 12 rebounds but shot only four of 17 from the field.

She let her frustration with the referees, as well as another disappointing season, get to her when she was issued a technical foul after being called for a defensive foul with 11:56 left to play. The Mystics led 44-41 at the time but were outscored 17-5 over the next seven minutes and lost control of the game.

“Sometimes the refs in this league are awful,” Holdsclaw said. “I don’t care if I get fined. I’ve had situations where a call is called and then the ref is telling me on the sidelines, ’Oh, um, that was a bad call, my fault.’ Don’t tell me when you do it. Call the play [right]. I’m just tired of it. It just kind of built up over time.”

The referees also issued technical fouls on New York coach Richie Adubato and Tamika Whitmore, but neither changed the momentum as much as Holdsclaw’s. After New York’s initial spurt, Washington never trailed by less than seven the rest of the game.

The game may have been a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference finals, but the stakes were a lot different yesterday. The teams entered with the two worst records in the conference, and Washington needed a win and a Connecticut loss to stay alive for the postseason for at least another day.

Charlotte did its part by beating Connecticut 69-68, but Washington could not pull out a win against the league’s worst road team. New York improved to 2-11 on the road, while Washington dropped its league-worst home record to 3-11.

“I already knew we were in a tough situation,” Holdsclaw said of her team’s defunct playoff hopes.

The only other offensive help the Mystics received came from Coco Miller, who started and scored 12 points in her first game back after missing Wednesday’s win with a sprained ankle.

Starting forward Stacey Dales-Schuman, who scored 20 against Detroit, was 0-for-5 from the field and scored all three of her points from the free throw line. In all, Washington shot 33.9 percent (20-for-59) for the game after shooting a season-high 52.2 percent against Detroit.

“It was frustrating that we didn’t have any offensive rhythm,” said Dales-Schuman, who chose not to comment on her individual performance. “We had to make up for it in other ways, and unfortunately we didn’t.”

New York was led by Crystal Robinson’s 18 points and also got 14 from Vickie Johnson and 10 from Whitmore.

The Liberty opened the game shooting better than 70 percent from the field en route to a 28-18 lead. They finally cooled off and missed nine of their last 10 shots to allow Washington to close the first half on a 15-3 run and take a 33-31 lead at the break. The rally appeared to be just what the Mystics needed to get out of their funk.

It wasn’t, which left Stanley as dumbfounded as she has been all season.

“There were several times where I thought New York was really tired, and we didn’t respond by taking advantage of that fatigue factor,” Stanley said. “They looked tired. I didn’t see our players respond with fire in our eyes to take advantage of that opportunity. I have no explanation why. I do not know.”