Dream face Mystics again, look to back up 33-point rout
Meeting for the second time in a week, the Atlanta Dream will look for similar success against the visiting Washington Mystics on Friday in College Park, Ga.
Atlanta delivered a crushing 89-56 victory at Washington on Sunday before seeing its three-game winning streak come to an end on Tuesday in an 86-81 road setback against the New York Liberty.
The Dream took an eight-point lead into the final quarter against the Eastern Conference-best Liberty before being outscored 26-13 over the last 10 minutes.
"I'm proud of the way our team played and executed, especially for the first three quarters," Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said. "Got to give New York credit, they kept coming, they got the momentum, and we weren't able to hold them off.
"For us, when you're playing a championship-level team on the road, you're not just trying to hold on, you've got to go at them and win the game. That's going to be a good learning experience for us."
Coming off a career-high 32 points in the win against Washington, Allisha Gray was held to 14 in the loss, while reserve Te-Hina PaoPao led the way with a season-high 16 points. Gray leads the team and ranks sixth in the WNBA with 20.4 points per game, while Atlanta's Rhyne Howard averages 17.3.
Washington rebounded from its lopsided loss to Atlanta with a 79-72 road win over the Chicago Sky on Tuesday.
After trailing by as many as 16 points in the first half, Washington outscored Chicago 47-28 after halftime. Brittney Sykes scored 20 points in the second half and 32 in the game, the most by a Mystics player this season.
Washington will aim for consecutive wins for the first time since the first two games of the season, which included a 94-90 victory over Atlanta in the season opener. The Mystics also will look to avenge their worst loss since September 2021, when they lost by 34 points to the Seattle Storm.
"There were a few moments here or there when we might not have played as hard as I'd like," Washington coach Sydney Johnson said of the loss on Sunday to Atlanta. "We just couldn't create our own luck and ran into a really good offensive team."
Sykes leads the Mystics with 20.5 points per game, followed by rookies Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, who each add 13.3 points.
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