Michelle: Inside the W: Mystics, Storm Punch Tickets To Finals
Legends have a tendency to do legendary things.
Two hours after the Washington Mystics punched the franchise’s first-ever ticket to the WNBA Finals, the league’s oldest player – not to mention one of its most accomplished, respected and revered – made sure that she would get there to join them. (“Use your legs, Luuuke.”)
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Elena Delle Donne sat on a chair in the Washington Mystics’ locker room late Tuesday night at McCamish Pavilion, her left knee wrapped in ice to limit swelling from a bone bruise that, by all accounts, would have kept most players out of the lineup.
She wasn’t about to be only a spectator in the most important game in franchise history, so Delle Donne had slipped on a protective brace and proceeded to play more than 36 minutes in a winner-take-all Game 5 against the Atlanta Dream to send the Mystics to the WNBA Finals for the first time.
Mechelle: No mistake about it: Mystics are headed to first WNBA Finals
It took 20 years, but they are the star-crossed Mystics no more. Washington is going to the WNBA Finals for the first time, thanks to resilience, persistence and — finally — some good breaks going their way.
The Mystics beat the Dream 86-81 in Game 5 of their semifinal series Tuesday at McCamish Pavilion. When they left this building a week ago after a Game 2 loss, the Mystics were feeling upset and worried. Elena Delle Donne had injured her left knee late in that game, and it was hard not to fear the worst.
H.P.H. Delle Donne shines in big moments; Mystics advance to WNBA finals
A small contingent of supporters wearing Washington Mystics red cheered from the corner of McCamish Pavilion. There was three-and-a-half seconds remaining in a decisive Game Five of the WNBA semifinals. Their leader, Elena Delle Donne, had just flushed a pair of free throws to give them a five-point lead over the home team, the Atlanta Dream.
They knew it. The game was sealed — thanks to the 6’5 forward who remained calm when the pressure was at its highest.
SB Nation: The Mystics surrounded Elena Delle Donne with the perfect roster. Now they’re championship bound.
Mystics earn first trip to WNBA Finals with 86-81 win over Dream in Game 5; Storm also advance
How Elena Delle Donne went from potential season-ending injury to WNBA superstar again in 5 days
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Kevin: Sue Bird’s fourth-quarter heroics help Storm return to WNBA Finals
To reach the WNBA Finals and finally hand Diana Taurasi’s Phoenix Mercury a loss in a deciding game, all the Seattle Storm needed was a huge game from the current MVP and a Taurasi-esque performance from one of her closest friends.
Wins over Dallas and Connecticut in the elimination rounds pushed the Mercury’s record to 13-0 in winner-take-all games with Taurasi. When Phoenix controlled the first half Tuesday, leading by as many as 11 points, the visiting Mercury looked well on their way to making that 14-0.
Sue Bird couldn’t stop the bleeding from her broken nose in Game 4, watching helplessly as her team’s chance to clinch a WNBA Finals berth slipped away in the fourth quarter.
But when back on the floor in the fourth in Game 5, Bird made sure to make her mark. In doing so, she slayed the Phoenix Mercury and her long-time best friend, Diana Taurasi, to take the Storm back to the Finals for the first time since 2010
It was the eighth minute of the fourth quarter of Game 5 between the Seattle Storm and the Phoenix Mercury when things began to get all the way screwy, and then all the way deadly, and then, eventually, all the way legendary. Let me tell you what happened Tuesday night. First, though, read these six things, because all of the six things are important for context:
The Seattle Storm started this season knowing it could be good. In 2014 and 2015, the team failed to make the playoffs. In 2016 and 2017, it was bounced from the postseason in the single-elimination first round. By May of this year, Breanna Stewart, for one, was fed up with losing.
“It’s time to start winning,” the third-year star said then. “I don’t want to come off as crass or cocky or anything like that, but losing sucks. It does. That’s just how I feel about it.”
If you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve truly been missing out. And yet, it’s also hard to blame you — the media gives the WNBA such little exposure that it’s easy to miss even the most thrilling storylines and nail-biting games.
Some of the lack of coverage is owed to the sharp decline in local media in recent years, and some of it is due to missteps by the WNBA. But a lot of it comes down to plain sexism, and the blatant disrespect it begets.
Let’s start by looking at the WNBA’s broadcast partner, ESPN. ESPN pays the WNBA $25 million a year for the right to air its games, so you’d think the network would have a vested interest in promoting the league as much as possible. And yet, on Sunday afternoon, even die-hard WNBA fans who were seeking out the Game 4 semifinal between the Atlanta Dream and Washington Mystics — a game in which 2015 MVP Delle Donne made a miraculous comeback from injury to lead the Mystics over the Dream and force a Game 5 — were left lost and confused.
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The Connecticut Sun ended the 2018 season with a 21-13 record and earned a single-bye in the playoffs with the #4 seed, only to get bounced in the second round (again) by the Phoenix Mercury (again). What happened this season and what needs to happen going forward? Let’s discuss.
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NCAA
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ESPN: Tina Thompson’s storybook career takes her all the way to Naismith HOF
When Tina Thompson was a youngster, she envisioned her grown-up self a lawyer, sitting inside her Los Angeles office, framed Harvard degree on the wall.
She didn’t dream USC would offer her a basketball scholarship. Nor could she have predicted that she would be the first pick in the inaugural WNBA draft, or that she would be integral to the Houston Comets winning the first four league championships.
Thompson didn’t picture herself in a USA basketball uniform. Even as recently as a few years ago, she had no plan to coach, either, but after working as an assistant and later associate head coach at Texas, she’s in the early months of her first head-coaching job at Virginia.
