Mystics at Mercury final score: Latta’s and Meesseman’s effort not enough in 88-80 loss

The Mystics lost to the Mercury 88-80 on Wednesday night. Brittney Griner was too much for Washington as she scored 30 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. For Washington; Elena Delle Donne was the only starter to score in double figures with 15 points while Ivory Latta and Emma Meesseman added another 13 and 12 points respectively off the bench.

The Mystics were outrebounded in this game, 40-34, but also shot at a considerably worse rate in this game. That said, Washington’s starters performed worse than their Phoenix counterparts, while we saw the opposite for the bench.

For example, Tayler Hill had an ugly 1 of 6 shooting performance and play just 16 minutes. Some of that time went to Ivory Latta, which was well deserved.

For the frontcourt, we saw Meesseman give a strong performance in 22 minutes of play. Furthermore, her usage rating was 29 percent, which is something we would like to see more of as this season continues.

It should also be noted that Meesseman came off the bench for the second straight game, and this could be a way to get her more involved in the offense. Also, the starting lineup has a couple ball-dominant players in Delle Donne and Hill, and Krystal Thomas played better than we expected while she was out at EuroBasket Women.

The Mystics are now 10-7 to finish the first half, good for third in the WNBA standings. They’re also better than the rest of the Eastern Conference -- though that doesn’t mean anything due to postseason changes. This loss certainly hurts since they played another team in the “Best of the rest” category. But the Mystics are still a work in progress, and we saw Ivory Latta and Emma Meessseman deliver strong performances when the starters weren’t so great.