Mystics at Storm preview: Washington faces Seattle on Sunday evening

The Mystics continue their road trip with an evening match against the Seattle Storm on Sunday night.

Game Info

Where and when: Sunday, May 21 at KeyArena, Seattle, WA. Tip off is at 7 p.m. ET

What’s Seattle’s record? 2-1

Who is Seattle’s head coach? Jenny Boucek. It’s her third season in that role, and fifth season overall as a head coach.

Who is their franchise player? Sue Bird, who’s their starting point guard since 2002. That said their best player is Breanna Stewart, the 2016 Rookie of the Year. The torch is gradually being handed to her as this team matures.

Streaming: WNBA League Pass

Injuries: The Mystics are good to go. Sue Bird is questionable due to a knee injury and hasn’t played yet this season.

Keys to the Game

Don’t let Jewell Loyd score tons of points - The Storm is still Sue Bird’s team for now because of her longevity. But the star of this year’s team, at least so far, is her backcourt mate Jewell Loyd. So far, Loyd averages 26 points and 3.5 assists a game while shooting 55.6 percent from the field. The Mystics will need to keep her contained to win this game?

Slow down Crystal Langhorne - The post averaged 80 percent shooting in Seattle’s first two games this season. Since she’s an undersized post compared to the 6’4 Emma Meesseman and 6’5 Delle Donne, I hope they can make things harder for her.

Keep Breanna Stewart under control too - Pretty obvious. Same with Bird if she plays.

Meesseman needs a breakout scoring game before she goes back home - Despite her five assists which Mitch noted in his preview last night, Meesseman was otherwise ineffective against the Sparks as she only took four shots.

Four shots in the L.A. game is not acceptable for a player of her caliber. She should be able to take more shots than that. Now that the young players from 2013 are now veteran leaders. the tolerance for this isn’t there anymore.

Will Shatori Walker Kimbrough play? So far, Walker-Kimbrough has earned two consecutive DNP-CD’s. I get that the Mystics are no longer a team looking for core players. They’re trying to make a run for the title. But when rookie Sidney Wiese went in all-out Styx-Killer mode last Friday while SWK can’t even see the floor, that perplexes me. Sparks HC Brian Agler is notoriously averse to young talent playing major minutes, though Thibault has been the exact opposite. It was just weird noticing that the script was flipped on Friday night.