Game Info 

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Projected Starters

Mystics (2-4): G – Hartley, G – Hill, F – Ruffin-Pratt, F – Meesseman, C – Dolson

Sky (2-4): G – Faulkner, G – Pondexter, F – Delle Donne, F – Breland, C – de Souza

 

Back Home 

The Mystics return home after a 2-1 road trip, picking up overtime wins in both Connecticut and Seattle, the team’s first two wins of the season.

After an 11-day hiatus from DC, the Mystics will look to pick up their first home win of the season against the visiting Chicago Sky.

Wednesday’s game will be the Mystics only home game over a three week stretch (May 21-June 11) and because they dropped their first three at Verizon Center, there may be a little extra motivation to make sure they get a win in front of the home crowd.

“Since you only have one home game in this couple week period, it may feel a little bit bigger than it is, and we haven’t been very good at home, partly because we started the season with not a lot of players, and also we played really good teams, we played New York, L.A. and Dallas, who all have winning records, but I kind of figured that’s now the past,” said head coach Mike Thibault.

“It’s important, we’ve been having great crowds, we have to give them some excitement and get them some wins.  Plus it always feels good to win at home, we definitely have to get some wins in our house,” echoed Ivory Latta.

Getting Healthier 

The team dropped their first three games of the season at home without a handful of their impact players, but after the long trip they are nearly back to full strength.

Ivory Latta, who underwent knee surgery in April, joined the team on the West Coast and scored 16 points in her debut against the Storm, including a critical 3-pointer late in the overtime period to seal the win for the Mystics.

Latta brings some much needed experience to a youthful roster that has resulted in the team leading the Eastern Conference in turnovers (16.8).

After missing three games with kidney stones, Natasha Cloud rejoined the team in Phoenix and scored eight points to go along with her four rebounds in 19 minutes of action.

Both Latta and Cloud will be available on Wednesday.

Tierra Ruffin-Pratt was the only player unable to practice on Tuesday and will be questionable for Wednesday’s game against the Sky.  She sprained her ankle during the preseason and although she came back ahead of schedule, she’s still dealing with soreness.

Even if TRP can’t go, the team will finally have three healthy point guards at their disposal, which resulted in a season-low six turnovers in Sunday’s game in Phoenix.

High-Scoring Sky 

The Sky have also gotten off to a slow start and like the Mystics enter Wednesday’s game at 2-4.   However, they scored 92 points and shot 59% from the field in a win over Dallas on Sunday.  The Mystics are currently tied for last in the league in points allowed (87.0 ppg) so they’ll need to change that tune in order to get a home win.

They bring with them the reigning WNBA MVP in Elena Delle Donne, who remains arguably the league’s most dangerous offensive player.  At 6’5, she has the ability to play any position on the court and can take over a game with her abundance of offensive moves.

“Obviously she’s one of the best offensive players in the league and you won’t stop her with one person, but you can’t throw all your energy into her.   They have too many other good weapons, between Cappie and Quigley and Breland and de Souza and when Vandersloot is healthy and Faulkner has played much better and Tamera Young… they have a lot of weapons,” said Thibault on the upcoming two-game series with the Sky.

Through six games, the Sky have averaged just 8.5 3-point attempts per game, by far the fewest in the league, so look for the Mystics to pack the paint to try and keep Chicago from getting easy buckets inside.

The Mystics went 1-4 against the Sky last season.

The two teams will meet again on Friday night in Chicago.