Mystics 50, Fever 48
By Katie Carrera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Alana Beard couldn't take it anymore.
Her team didn't seem to care that it had just played its worst half of basketball this season, one of the worst halves in team history. Crying, the Washington Mystics' star guard pleaded with her teammates. She yelled at them: play or leave.
"There comes a point when you're a leader, you come in and you give your all every single day," Beard said. "To feel like you're out there alone and [you] don't have everybody on the same page is really hard."
She paused, her eyes red, this time from the tears that followed the Mystics' 50-48 win over the Indiana Fever last night at Verizon Center.
"I just let them know that it's hard. It really is."
No one expected an explosive offensive game between two of the three lowest-scoring teams in the WNBA, but the Mystics (7-11) drastically underachieved in the first half. They had 16 turnovers and 14 points, one point shy of the franchise record for lowest halftime score -- as seemingly every problem they've had this season resurfaced.
Pinned to the perimeter by an Indiana defense that cut off passes and rarely gave them room to work, the Mystics froze in the offensive zone, shooting 26.9 percent (7 of 26) and piling up turnovers. It didn't seem to matter who had the ball, as passes missed their mark, were intercepted or knocked out of bounds. The Mystics recorded two assists in the half.
And Washington's frustration began to show. Veteran forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin (game-high 20 points) was charged with a technical foul. It looked as though the Mystics' resiliency had been quashed by the sheer weight of their errors, and players started standing around as if resigned to losing.
Not Beard. She was angry. Going into the locker room with a 29-14 deficit, she challenged her teammates to step up and play like professionals.
"We just got on each other," McWilliams-Franklin said. "We had our going-to-church service meeting, yelling, screaming, crying. Myself and Alana just told everybody we've got to pull it together. If you don't want to be here, don't be here, don't come out. We're about winning."
Said Beard: "It was embarrassing. Our fans don't deserve what we're giving them. The owners don't deserve it, the coaches don't deserve it. No one deserves the way we're playing."
The pair came out in the second half ready to match their words, combining for five points in the first minute. They found each other under the basket after Beard's layup, hugging and screaming at the same time.
Their attitude had an effect on the rest of the team, too. Slowly the Mystics exchanged baskets with the Fever, and although they were still down by 10 points at the end of the third quarter, the Mystics were making defensive stops.
In the fourth quarter, Indiana's inconsistency (3-of-11 shooting, four turnovers) gave Washington an opportunity to catch up. The Mystics had their feet moving, their hands waving on defense. They stopped throwing the ball away, recording only two turnovers in the second half, and finally found some offensive regularity.
McWilliams-Franklin scored 12 points in the fourth quarter, including a shot-clock buzzer-beating jump shot that tied the game with 3 minutes 52 seconds remaining. Beard, who was second for the Mystics with nine points, spent her time pestering Indiana's Katie Douglas and Tamika Catchings.
Forward Monique Currie, who scored five points, hit Washington's only three-pointer 38 seconds after McWilliams-Franklin's tying shot to give the Mystics a lead they hung on to as the game ended.
"I challenged everyone and they stepped up to it and we won," Beard said. "We had a great team win, one person was in double figures, and what happened is we trusted each other."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.