The last time the Washington Mystics and Atlanta Dream faced off, the Mystics had the hot hand and drained 17 3-pointers en route to an 87-68 win on June 11.
The opposite was the case in Friday’s rematch between the teams at Gateway Center Arena.
Both teams struggled offensively as they combined to go 47 of 133 but the Mystics’ 43.3 % shooting percentage (26 of 60) outpaced Atlanta’s 28.8 (21 of 73) shooting clip and Washington edged the Dream 72-69.
“(It was) definitely a missed opportunity for us,” Dream coach Tanisha Wright said. “[I’ll] give credit where credit is due. I thought Washington did a good job of just holding the fort. I thought a lot of what happened today, I thought we beat ourselves. We had a lot of opportunities and did a lot of good things.”
Atlanta (12-25) is still in contention for the eighth and final WNBA playoff spot and Washington (13-24) is in ninth behind Chicago (13-24) for eighth place in the league standings as Chicago has the head-to-head advantage with Washington. The Dream and Mystics face off again on Sunday in Washington. If the Dream lose on Sunday, they will be out of playoff contention.