Mystics at Lynx Game 2 final score: Washington on the brink of elimination after 93-83 loss

The Mystics played the Lynx in Game 2 of their WNBA semifinals series, 93-83.

After Tuesday’s bad loss, this was an excellent effort by the Mystics in the beginning, when they took a 29-19 lead to finish the first quarter with Elena Delle Donne leading the way with 10 points in the period, while Kristi Toliver and Natasha Cloud added 13 more points. For at least one period, it appeared that the Mystics were back in form.

After the first quarter, it was all Lynx. Minnesota shot 70.6 percent in the second quarter while the Mystics barely hung on to a 47-45 lead to end the first half. Minnesota then captured the lead in the third quarter and went on from there.

Though the Mystics raced to a quick lead early in the fourth, the Lynx went on another big run to close the game out. Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver finished with 25 points each. But for the Lynx, four of their five starters scored in double digits, including WNBA MVP Sylvia Fowles who scored 25 points in this game.

Washington found a rotation to stick with, but why weren’t Ivory Latta or Shatori Walker-Kimbrough in earlier?

The Mystics stuck with their usual starters and went with Natasha Cloud, Allison Hightower, and Tianna Hawkins in their bench rotation. The trio scored 21 points tonight, which was nice to see given how tight the rotation was.

That said, I’m a little puzzled as to why Ivory Latta and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough weren’t in this game at all. The Mystics could have used some extra three point shooting to counter the Lynx’s runs.

Hightower should have played more minutes!

Hightower played a shade over 10 minutes and scored 8 points on 4 of 7 shooting. I don’t get why she didn’t play more, even if Toliver had the type of scoring night she had.

Emma Meesseman didn’t step up when she had to

Emma Meesseman didn’t have the best shooting game today, but she only attempted seven shots and never saw the free throw line. In fact, she didn’t play most of the fourth quarter while Delle Donne and Toliver played every minute.

Delle Donne shot the ball 15 times and Toliver shot it 23 more while Meesseman only took seven shots and probably should have taken more. She’s one of the stars on this team. And more often than not, she’s able to make shots that her teammates can’t. We’ve seen that time and time again in the regular season. Her postseason numbers are very inconsistent however, and that’s disappointing.

This team can’t win this series if Meesseman’s not finding a way to score — even if she doesn’t really want to. We can’t have this happen again because if they do, this season’s over on Sunday.

Next Game

The Mystics play again on Sunday at 3 p.m. at home. Hopefully they can stave off elimination because there were some promising signs tonight.