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What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas right? Guess we’ll just have to find out. The Mystics visit Sin City for their third road game in four days.
Las Vegas Aces (0-4) vs Washington Mystics (5-1)
When: Friday, June 1 at 10:30 P.M. EST
Where: Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, NV
How to watch: WNBA League Pass will stream the game (subscription required). In the D.C. area, tune into Monumental Sports Network (subscription required).
Injuries: For the Mystics, Tayler Hill is out with knee rehab, Natasha Cloud is out, and Elena Delle Donne is questionable. For the Aces, Moriah Jefferson is out indefinitely with a knee injury.
What To Look For
Key adjustments made - First things first, what must not happen from Washington is that horrible first half they played in the last meeting with the Aces. Mystics shot 7-35 in the first half and was down 31-23. Of those 23 points, 17 were from Elena Delle Donne and the remaining six points were split between Kristi Toliver, Krystal Thomas, and rookie Myisha Hines-Allen. A great second half from Washington’s bench was key to Mystics’ victory.
Big difference now is that Delle Donne is questionable and Natasha Cloud, the general off the bench, could be out again for this matchup. These are two big name players who helped seal the win last time. As we’ve seen in the past few games with injuries, head coach Mike Thibault knows how to adjust and use strategic methods to push his team through the negatives.
So far for Washington in the past two road games, they’ve had two different starting lineups:
- vs Seattle Storm (Toliver, TRP, Hines-Allen, Mo Currie, and Tianna Hawkins)
- vs Phoenix Mercury (Toilver, TRP, Ariel Atkins, Hawkins, and Krystal Thomas)
It’ll be interesting to see what route Thibault goes in order to stop Aces’ rookie center A’ja Wilson as well as small forward Nia Coffey.
Keep the rookies active - Hines-Allen and Atkins have their very special own style of play offensively and defensively. Whether either of them start or come off the bench, they make their impact well known throughout the game. Hines-Allen is currently averaging 6.8 points per game and 5.3 rebounds per game. Atkins averages 12.7 points per game and 1.2 steals per game with a three-point shooting percentage of 46.4. She also added a career high of 21 points on Wednesday vs the Mercury.