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Mystics hope to have Delle Donne available vs. Dream
WASHINGTON -- Time is the enemy of the Washington Mystics as Friday's Game 3 of their WNBA semifinal series against the Atlanta Dream approaches.
Mystics All-Star forward Elena Delle Donne is questionable after leaving Game 2 with what was later diagnosed as a left knee bone bruise. She sat out Thursday's practice to receive treatment in hopes of getting ready for Friday.
"She's tough. If she can play, she will," Mystics coach Mike Thibault told the Washington Post. "We'll see. It's been kind of round-the-clock rehab."
The best-of-five series between second-seeded Atlanta and third-seeded Washington is tied 1-1, with Game 3 to be played at the Charles E. Smith Center on the campus of George Washington University. Game 4 will also take place at the Smith Center on Sunday.
Delle Donne's left knee bent awkwardly on a drive to the basket with just over three minutes remaining in Tuesday's game. She was helped off the court by teammates and tests Wednesday revealed no ligament damage.
Delle Donne is averaging 26 points and 13 rebounds in three postseason games this year. She had 27 points, 14 rebounds and six assists in Game 2 as Washington built a double-digit lead before Atlanta rallied.
Washington led 70-68 when Delle Donne went down, but lost 78-75 after failing to make a field goal in the final two minutes.
Alex Bentley came off the bench to score 22 points for the Dream. Jessica Breland finished with 10 points, 14 rebounds, two assists and a franchise-record seven blocks. Bentley has averaged 20.5 points in Atlanta's two playoff games, with Tiffany Hayes adding 17.0 per game.
The Dream already were missing star Angel McCoughtry, who went down late in the season with a knee injury.
Atlanta outrebounded Washington 44-26 in Game 2 and received a boost off the bench from 6-foot-7 Imani McGee Stafford, who contributed four points and three rebounds in eight minutes after sitting out Game 1.
"I knew Imani was champing at the bit to give us some minutes," Dream coach Nicki Collen told ESPN.com. "She gave us good minutes. We just wanted to give (the Mystics) a different look in short spurts."
Washington went 1-3 without Delle Donne in the regular season. Tianna Hawkins stepped in and averaged 12.8 points and 6.8 rebounds during that stretch.
"We didn't really talk about her today, actually," Mystics veteran guard Monique Currie told the Post regarding Delle Donne. "We just went through practice as we normally would. Obviously, we're hoping that she'll be fine for tomorrow, but we know that we have to be prepared for her not to be."
Kristi Tolliver is averaging 11.7 points per game in the playoffs for Washington, second most behind Delle Donne.
Breland, the WNBA's third-leading shot-blocker (1.91 bpg) this season, was named to the league's all-defensive first team. Hayes and Ariel Atkins of the Mystics were named to the second team.
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2-0 deficit turns Mercury into Storm chasers
The Seattle Storm are one win in their best-of-five series with the Phoenix Mercury from advancing to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2010.
That one win will be difficult. Seattle must play the Phoenix Mercury on the road in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals on Friday night and the Mercury, down 2-0 in the series, will not be eliminated easily.
Standing in the way of the Storm, the team with the best overall record (26-8) during the WNBA regular season, are veterans Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and DeWanna Bonner.
Taurasi, in particular, is the one the Storm are concerned about after she led the fifth-seeded Mercury (who finished 20-14 in the regular season) to a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback in Game 2 on Tuesday before losing 91-87 in overtime at Seattle.
Taurasi outscored Seattle 14-12 in the quarter and made a 3-pointer with 3.6 seconds left to cap a Mercury comeback from 19 points down.
"It's the playoffs and if you're going to win a championship you got to go through the best and Diana is the best," said Seattle guard Sue Bird, a former teammate of Taurasi's at Connecticut. "In some ways, it's almost impossible to stop. In other ways, as an opponent, you're just constantly trying to think of ways to stop it. But once she gets into that zone, it's really difficult.
"For us to be able to weather these two games -- of course we're upset we lost the lead -- but we weathered and we were able to still get the win against a great player and a really solid team. We feel very fortunate to be sitting here up 2-0 and we know it's not going to be easy in Phoenix."
Bird, who finished with 19 points and six assists on Tuesday, made the go-ahead layup in overtime with 1:09 left and the Storm's defense took over from there after collapsing against Taurasi and the Mercury in the fourth quarter.
In both wins so far over Phoenix, Seattle has built a double-digit lead in the fourth only for the Mercury to surge back with a furious rally.
"We made a couple shots here, caused some turnovers there," said Taurasi, who made all four of her shots in the fourth quarter, including three 3-pointers, in Game 2. "They missed some shots. We were able to get into some sort of rhythm that I don't think we've been able to get to in this series so far.
"It was a slew of things, and we kept cutting the lead little by little. That shows a lot of fight from our team."
An example of Seattle's late-game breakdowns against Phoenix: WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart scored just two of her team-high 27 points in the fourth quarter of Game 2.
"You get the lead, you probably relax a little bit, and then all of a sudden they start to get it going," Seattle coach Dan Hughes said. "You could see it. This shot goes in. This shot goes in, then this shot goes in, so they get momentum and all of a sudden the momentum has changed.
"I think it's a growing process for us. Every game we are trying to learn something."
Griner, a five-time WNBA All-Star, scored 23 points on 11-of-19 shooting and collected 10 rebounds in nearly 35 minutes before fouling out with 4:01 left in overtime. Her exit frustrated Phoenix, which once again realized it must have better starts to have a good chance to upset the Storm in the end.
"Very, very disappointed," Mercury coach Sandy Brondello said. "We dug ourselves a big hole again. We were very resilient getting back into the game and finally made some 3-point shots. It took us until the last 20 seconds at the end to make them, but it's a game that we should've won."
WASHINGTON -- Time is the enemy of the Washington Mystics as Friday's Game 3 of their WNBA semifinal series against the Atlanta Dream approaches.
Mystics All-Star forward Elena Delle Donne is questionable after leaving Game 2 with what was later diagnosed as a left knee bone bruise. She sat out Thursday's practice to receive treatment in hopes of getting ready for Friday.
"She's tough. If she can play, she will," Mystics coach Mike Thibault told the Washington Post. "We'll see. It's been kind of round-the-clock rehab."
The best-of-five series between second-seeded Atlanta and third-seeded Washington is tied 1-1, with Game 3 to be played at the Charles E. Smith Center on the campus of George Washington University. Game 4 will also take place at the Smith Center on Sunday.
Delle Donne's left knee bent awkwardly on a drive to the basket with just over three minutes remaining in Tuesday's game. She was helped off the court by teammates and tests Wednesday revealed no ligament damage.
Delle Donne is averaging 26 points and 13 rebounds in three postseason games this year. She had 27 points, 14 rebounds and six assists in Game 2 as Washington built a double-digit lead before Atlanta rallied.
Washington led 70-68 when Delle Donne went down, but lost 78-75 after failing to make a field goal in the final two minutes.
Alex Bentley came off the bench to score 22 points for the Dream. Jessica Breland finished with 10 points, 14 rebounds, two assists and a franchise-record seven blocks. Bentley has averaged 20.5 points in Atlanta's two playoff games, with Tiffany Hayes adding 17.0 per game.
The Dream already were missing star Angel McCoughtry, who went down late in the season with a knee injury.
Atlanta outrebounded Washington 44-26 in Game 2 and received a boost off the bench from 6-foot-7 Imani McGee Stafford, who contributed four points and three rebounds in eight minutes after sitting out Game 1.
"I knew Imani was champing at the bit to give us some minutes," Dream coach Nicki Collen told ESPN.com. "She gave us good minutes. We just wanted to give (the Mystics) a different look in short spurts."
Washington went 1-3 without Delle Donne in the regular season. Tianna Hawkins stepped in and averaged 12.8 points and 6.8 rebounds during that stretch.
"We didn't really talk about her today, actually," Mystics veteran guard Monique Currie told the Post regarding Delle Donne. "We just went through practice as we normally would. Obviously, we're hoping that she'll be fine for tomorrow, but we know that we have to be prepared for her not to be."
Kristi Tolliver is averaging 11.7 points per game in the playoffs for Washington, second most behind Delle Donne.
Breland, the WNBA's third-leading shot-blocker (1.91 bpg) this season, was named to the league's all-defensive first team. Hayes and Ariel Atkins of the Mystics were named to the second team.
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2-0 deficit turns Mercury into Storm chasers
The Seattle Storm are one win in their best-of-five series with the Phoenix Mercury from advancing to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2010.
That one win will be difficult. Seattle must play the Phoenix Mercury on the road in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals on Friday night and the Mercury, down 2-0 in the series, will not be eliminated easily.
Standing in the way of the Storm, the team with the best overall record (26-8) during the WNBA regular season, are veterans Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and DeWanna Bonner.
Taurasi, in particular, is the one the Storm are concerned about after she led the fifth-seeded Mercury (who finished 20-14 in the regular season) to a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback in Game 2 on Tuesday before losing 91-87 in overtime at Seattle.
Taurasi outscored Seattle 14-12 in the quarter and made a 3-pointer with 3.6 seconds left to cap a Mercury comeback from 19 points down.
"It's the playoffs and if you're going to win a championship you got to go through the best and Diana is the best," said Seattle guard Sue Bird, a former teammate of Taurasi's at Connecticut. "In some ways, it's almost impossible to stop. In other ways, as an opponent, you're just constantly trying to think of ways to stop it. But once she gets into that zone, it's really difficult.
"For us to be able to weather these two games -- of course we're upset we lost the lead -- but we weathered and we were able to still get the win against a great player and a really solid team. We feel very fortunate to be sitting here up 2-0 and we know it's not going to be easy in Phoenix."
Bird, who finished with 19 points and six assists on Tuesday, made the go-ahead layup in overtime with 1:09 left and the Storm's defense took over from there after collapsing against Taurasi and the Mercury in the fourth quarter.
In both wins so far over Phoenix, Seattle has built a double-digit lead in the fourth only for the Mercury to surge back with a furious rally.
"We made a couple shots here, caused some turnovers there," said Taurasi, who made all four of her shots in the fourth quarter, including three 3-pointers, in Game 2. "They missed some shots. We were able to get into some sort of rhythm that I don't think we've been able to get to in this series so far.
"It was a slew of things, and we kept cutting the lead little by little. That shows a lot of fight from our team."
An example of Seattle's late-game breakdowns against Phoenix: WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart scored just two of her team-high 27 points in the fourth quarter of Game 2.
"You get the lead, you probably relax a little bit, and then all of a sudden they start to get it going," Seattle coach Dan Hughes said. "You could see it. This shot goes in. This shot goes in, then this shot goes in, so they get momentum and all of a sudden the momentum has changed.
"I think it's a growing process for us. Every game we are trying to learn something."
Griner, a five-time WNBA All-Star, scored 23 points on 11-of-19 shooting and collected 10 rebounds in nearly 35 minutes before fouling out with 4:01 left in overtime. Her exit frustrated Phoenix, which once again realized it must have better starts to have a good chance to upset the Storm in the end.
"Very, very disappointed," Mercury coach Sandy Brondello said. "We dug ourselves a big hole again. We were very resilient getting back into the game and finally made some 3-point shots. It took us until the last 20 seconds at the end to make them, but it's a game that we should've won."
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