Top Stories of the Week: Mystics advance in the playoffs, Wizards training camp around the corner

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weeks. Labor Day has passed and fall weather has started coming along. That means NBA basketball’s on its way! The Mystics are also still playing games with the WNBA playoffs underway right now. So lets get to a quick run-through of what happened this past week.

Mystics advance to the second round of the playoffs

The Mystics lost six of their last eight games and limped into to the playoffs. That usually spells an early first round loss. Though they were hosting a playoff game at home in the WNBA’s new playoff format, Washington didn’t win a playoff game at home since 2004, and they didn’t advance past the first round since 2002.

On Wednesday, they hosted the Dallas Wings and defeated them 86-76 after letting Dallas evaporate double digit leads toward the end of the first half, and things were looking quite bad in the fourth quarter as well.

Though Elena Delle Donne and Emma Meesseman played the way that All-Stars do with big scoring performances, Tierra Ruffin-Pratt also came up huge, stopping a Dallas run in the fourth quarter and repping the DMV like few can.

The Mystics head on the road to face the New York Liberty tomorrow at 5 p.m. ET. Here are some more links on the Mystics:

• EDD was named to the 2017 Team USA training camp squad.
• Emma Meesseman’s Belgium team is now 28th in the world after entering EuroBasket Women as an unranked squad.
• Krystal Thomas probably won’t win the WNBA Most Improved Player Award. But she’s definitely their most improved player this season.
• The last few minutes of the Mystics vs. Wings game was bizarre, when we saw EDD put on a big bandage after getting stitches. She also hopes that she won’t get a scar from that.
• Here’s Ava Wallace’s recap of the game from the Washington Post. GM and Head Coach Mike Thibault believed this was a “major step” in this team’s development.

Wizards are closer to training camp

The biggest news from a basketball game perspective was Tomas Satoransky’s performance in EuroBasket 2017 for the Czech Republic. Though he had a couple strong performances during group play, the Czechs ended up 1-4 in Group Play and won’t advance to the Round of 16 stage this go-round and his last game was a whimper. Overall, I hope he’s going to get some more time to play at point guard, and that his jump shot improves a bit as well. Speaking about Satoransky, we also had a roundtable last Thursday to talk about whether the Wizards are developing in an optimal fashion.

And here are some more links on the Wizards along the way:

• John Wall is only in the beginning of his prime. But he’s had more career assists than some notable NBA players.
• Randy Wittman’s back in the NBA! He’ll be on the Orlando Magic on a consulting basis where he will report to their head coach Frank Vogel.
• Caron Butler is now on the Wizards’ All-Time roster on NBA 2K18. About damn time!
• Candace Buckner of The Washington Post wrote this column on Kelly Oubre, who moved from New Orleans to Houston after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Given the timing of hurricanes we have had lately, I strongly encourage you to read this story.
• Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post wrote about that the Wizards are finally in position to ascend in the D.C. sports hierarchy.
• Eric Spyropoulos of NBA Math gets deep into the numbers on Otto Porter’s performance, and how he can live up to his max level contract.
• Nicholas Arguelles of Wiz of Awes wrote that though Markieff and Marcus Morris are twins, they are now in position to be rivals since Marcus is a Celtic now, among other things.
• Carrick Felix will join the Wizards’ training camp roster.

And that’s it.

Before I finish, our thoughts go out to the people in Antigua and Barbuda, the Netherlands (Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba), France (Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, Guadaloupe), the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico since these places were all hit by Hurricane Irma this week.

Our thoughts also go out to Florida since the storm will hit the peninsula later today and tomorrow. Former NBA star Tim Duncan wrote a column on The Players’ Tribune asking for your help, and here’s another link and another with more resources.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekends.