The bulletin board material the Dallas Wings supplied to Cotie McMahon looked more like posterboard material. On Wednesday night, after the Washington Mystics’ 96-92 comeback win over Dallas, the rookie Mystics guard posted a photo of a scouting report the Wings had evidently left behind in their locker room. Like many scouting reports—who can forget Joe Mazzulla’s Quizlet account?—this one featured some good bits of found poetry. Angela Dugalić? “In to space floor/Attack her if she guards you.” Shakira Austin: “Battle her in every way for every minute.” But it did not feature Cotie McMahon.
That might explain the 18 points McMahon put up on Wednesday night, 10 of which came in a tense fourth quarter. The Wings led the Mystics by as much as 20 points late in the third, but McMahon got the game back in control by muscling her way downhill and finishing through contact. Austin, the center who finished with 27 points and 13 rebounds, also didn’t seem like she minded being battled in every way for every minute. Wednesday’s was the Mystics' fifth straight win, a streak of success the franchise hasn’t achieved since their championship season in 2019.
Washington’s 17-12 record puts them eighth in the WNBA right now, but a big pileup in the middle of the standings means they’re just 1.5 games back of the fourth seed. Even if they stay in that final playoff spot, they’re still poised to be a brutally annoying team to play in the first round. Are there teams I like more in a three- or five-game series? Sure, but the Mystics can hang with all of them. The streak began with a road win against Golden State, followed by a one-point win over the Aces. Minnesota? Indiana? New York? They’ve got a win against each one this season. The Mystics will play current four-seed Atlanta (whom they beat in their last meeting in July) on Friday.
Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron were such revelations as All-Star rookies last year that it might have been tempting for the Mystics to supercharge their rebuild with big swings in free agency. Among team leadership, there were reportedly some disagreements over what the team’s next moves should be. General manager Jamila Wideman was fired in early April, after one year on the job, due to these “strategic and directional differences,” The Athletic said.
In the end, Washington kept its core homegrown. The lineup that head coach Sydney Johnson used to close the Dallas game featured just one player born in the ‘90s: Michaela Onyenwere, the 1999 baby and the oldest player on the league’s youngest team. So far, the returns have been promising. Iriafen and Citron have kept up their spectacular play; they both made their second All-Star teams last month. The Mystics also wisely paid up to match the three-year max offer sheet the Toronto Tempo gave Austin this offseason. The oft-injured player has stayed healthy for a second straight season, and she’s rewarded their faith by playing like one of the league’s best two-way bigs.
There’s some upside elsewhere on the roster: McMahon, for all her heroics on Wednesday, still doesn’t have a real jump shot or great passing instincts. Only recently has No. 4 overall pick Lauren Betts begun to settle in to the speed of WNBA action. The stacked frontcourt rotation has taken some pressure off her as she works on her screening and pick-and-roll play. Even with a roster this young, Johnson has plenty of exciting options to trust in: When the 6-foot-1 Citron runs the point, as she has in some crunch-time lineups, the Mystics have scary length at every position.
The Mystics' versatile, athletic defense has kept them in games, but their offense is third-worst in the league by offensive rating. What’s impressive—and maybe a little frustrating, given the rest of the cheap talent on the roster—is that they’ve managed their success largely without a real WNBA starting point guard. They drafted the 5-foot-6 Georgia Amoore two years ago, and her size has proven limiting in professional play so far. Washington looked to be an intriguing destination for Kelsey Plum before her trade to Phoenix, but it wasn’t terribly surprising that a team built through the draft didn’t want to pay up for a rental.
The Mystics may be able to fix that problem by other means. Because Jeff Pagliocca is the best general manager in Washington Mystics history, they will have Chicago’s lottery pick and a good shot at a top offensive guard in the 2027 draft. If their track record is any indication, she’ll be another problem to worry about on the scouting report.
