Miscue-Plagued Mystics Falter Down the Stretch

Mercury 96, Mystics 83

The Mystics' Alana Beard scores 23 points in a lossing effort to the Phoenix Mercury on Wednesday afternoon. (Nick Wass - AP)

Washington Mystics Coach Richie Adubato stood outside the locker room, looked down at the stat sheet and started counting.

"Three, four, three, three," he said, ticking off the total turnovers for Chasity Melvin, Alana Beard, DeLisha Milton-Jones and Coco Miller.

Adubato blamed those errors -- the team had 17 turnovers -- and poor shooting for the Mystics' 96-83 loss to the Phoenix Mercury yesterday at Verizon Center.

"It was a combination of us not making shots and turning the ball over," Adubato said. "I haven't looked at the tape but I bet we had 10 in the last quarter. We just made errant passes, bad decisions on the pass. It was a contagious thing. It wasn't just one particular person."

Officially, the Mystics committed four turnovers in the fourth quarter and seven in the third.

Beard said the miscues, many of which occurred during the first six possessions of the fourth quarter, doomed the Mystics.

"The only story of the fourth quarter was turnovers," said Beard, who finished with a game-high 23 points.

Phoenix started the fourth period trailing 71-69 but outscored the Mystics 27-12 in the quarter, when Penny Taylor scored eight points, and Diana Taurasi and Kelly Miller each added five.

The Mystics, who had won this season's previous meeting with Phoenix, 81-78, kept the score close early in this game -- the lead changed hands seven times in the first eight minutes. Then Phoenix starting guard Kelly Miller -- Coco Miller's twin sister -- took over, scoring 10 of her season-high 22 points in the first quarter. When the second quarter began, the Mystics were down 27-17.

The Mystics spent the second quarter chipping away at Phoenix's lead, and by halftime Washington led 50-48.

"Once we buckled down defensively we got ourselves back into the game," Beard said.

The fourth-quarter turnovers, however, were the Mystics' undoing and left the team at 11-11.