Mystics 71, Liberty 54
NEW YORK - Washington knew it could take advantage of injury-depleted New York.
Chamique Holdsclaw had 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Mystics to their third straight victory, 71-54 over the Liberty last night.
“New York is hurting right now,” Holdsclaw said. “We just wanted to be real patient and take it to them, attack them and make them have to run and get up and down the floor with us.”
The Liberty were down to only eight players, after announcing forward Ann Wauters will miss six to eight weeks with a broken bone in her right foot. Center Tari Phillips (broken right hand) and guard Crystal Robinson (broken right pinkie) will be out another couple of weeks.
Rookie Alana Beard added 11 points for Washington, which improved to .500 (8-8) for the first time since it was 1-1 on May 23. The Mystics were coming off a 72-69 home win Wednesday against Seattle, which is in second place in the Western Conference.
“In the last two games we decided to be a good team,” Washington coach Michael Adams said. “We have to try to keep teams to 60 points or below. That was our goal coming in. They had three starters out due to injury but we did not want to take them lightly.”
Vickie Johnson scored 14 points, Elena Baranova had 12 points and 10 rebounds, and rookie Shameka Christon added 11 points for New York, which has lost nine of 11 since opening the season 6-1.
Trailing 37-28 at halftime, the Liberty cut the deficit to five within the first 1-1/2 minutes of the second half. However, the Mystics went on a 17-7 run to stretch their lead to 15 points. New York didn’t get closer than seven the rest of the way.
The Liberty, shooting 42 percent from the field entering the game, were just 20-for-60 (33.3 percent) against the Mystics, including 6-for-26 on 3-pointers.
“We have too many good shooters, we have too many good offensive players to shoot 33 percent,” Liberty interim coach Pat Coyle said. “That’s the thing with this team, when we shoot well we win and when we don’t we lose.
“It’s tough when you get looks and you don’t make shots. We need to start knocking shots down. That’s the bottom line.”
Becky Hammon had 10 points for the Liberty, but shot 4-for-15 from the field, including 2-for-10 from 3-point range. Bethany Donaphin started at center in place of the injured Wauters and Phillips and had 10 rebounds in 24 minutes.
Washington moved into a tie with Detroit for fourth place in the Eastern Conference, 1-1/2 games behind first-place Connecticut. New York is in last place, 2-1/2 games out.
The Mystics, who beat the Liberty 62-60 at Comcast Center on June 13, won for the ninth time in 23 meetings against New York, and got their fifth victory in 12 games at Madison Square Garden.
Sting 70, Storm 67
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Tynesha Lewis scored a career-high 19 points to lead Charlotte to a victory over Seattle.
Lewis passed her previous best of 16 points with a three-point play that gave the Sting a 66-60 lead with 2:30 to go.
Allison Feaster scored 19 points and Tammy Sutton-Brown added 16 for Charlotte, which pulled within one-half game of Eastern Conference-leading Connecticut.
Fever 58, Lynx 56
INDIANAPOLIS - Stephanie White made two free throws with 1.3 seconds remaining to give Indiana the victory.
Tamika Catchings led a balanced scoring attack for Indiana with 17 points, while Deanna Jackson added 13 and Natalie Williams 12.
Catchings was 3-for-10 from the field, but hit all 11 of her free throws. As a team, Indiana was 21-for-22 from the line.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.