Chicago Sky Seeks Consistency in Second Straight Win vs Washington Mystics

Coming into tonight's game at Allstate Arena, the Chicago Sky of the WNBA has been a team of streaks: streaks within games, and streaks of losses and wins. After losing the first four, winning the next four, and losing the next four, Chicago came from 13 points down to win the second game of its next streak, defeating the Washington Mystics 79-72, and increasing their record to 6-8.

Tonight's game was a microcosm of the season thus far. There were streaks within streaks: streaks of scoring, of being scored upon, of hitting shots and missing shots, of dominating and being dominated. Fortunately, the timing of the game was such that the Sky finished on a scoring and defensive streak.

Typically, Chicago jumped out to a quick lead, that peaked at 9-2. But with 3:53 remaining in the first quarter, Washington took the lead at 13-12, and held onto it until 3:48 in the third quarter. 

Toward taking their lead, Washington went on a 10-0 run in the second quarter, peaking at a 30-20 advantage. Similarly, Chicago rode a 12-0 run in the third quarter, into the fourth, to take the lead back.

For a while it looked as if the Sky would not be starting a new win streak. In the first quarter, they shot less than 30 percent from the field, had no offensive rebounds, and no blocked shots.

But as the game progressed, Chicago gradually ratcheted up their performance. With 3:48 remaining in the third, Dominique Canty, who had another solid offensive night with 13 points, shooting 5-for-9 from the field, battled for a rebound on an errant three pointer by Cathrine Kraayeveld and put it back up for the deuce, putting Chicago up by one at 50-49. The Sky never never trailed after that.

From there, Chicago turned up the heat on offense and defense. Defensively they closed in on Washington like a vice, blocking shots, stealing passes and hauling down rebounds. By the middle of the fourth quarter, Washington started to choke in a manner similar to what Sky fans have seen in their team more than once. But this time it was Chicago keeping its cool, keeping the pressure on, and taking advantage of mistakes.

The Mystics tried to mount a comeback but Chicago held, never letting the visitors closer than five points. The game ended with a seven point differential.

Once again Chicago played without the services of Shameeka Criston, who continues to suffer from post-concussion syndrome. Her status remains day to day. In her stead, Tamera Young started, and made her presence felt on both sides of the court. Jia Perkins stepped up to fill some of the scoring gap left by Criston, and as usual, Sylvia Fowles had a strong offensive performance.

With 20 points, Perkins logged her fifth consecutive double digit performance. After rushing the majority of her shots in the first half, Perkins was able to get back in her groove after the break.

“I wasn’t shooting the ball where I like to shoot the ball,” Perkins said. “Now I am just comfortable and in a better rhythm.”

Fowles, who contributed 16 points, thinks the team is starting to get on the right track.

“We’re getting there. Not just myself, but my team,” Fowles said. “We are becoming a team as a whole. We can’t get the big head. We just have to utilize things that we are good at.”

Rookie Epiphanny Prince also put in a strong performance. Continuing her campaign for rookie of the year, Prince finished with 14 points, nine coming from behind the arc. That is after leading all scorers in the Sky's previous game, a win over Connecticut on the road. 

Prince expressed her hope that the team is finally coalescing. "We just need to play consitently the way we have when we've won and we can go far on this team," she said. 

Head coach Steven Key is seeing signs of the team that wheeled off four straight victories earlier in the season, largely coming off the strong play of the backcourt.

“We aren’t going to get big-headed but when Sylvia has three or four people guarding her, we have shooters that can step up,” Key said. “When we won those other four games, this is exactly what happened.”

Having decried the team's "selfishness" in its losing streak, Key was asked how things have changed with the two wins. He said, "They weren't being selfish on purpose but they weren't doing a good job of distributing the ball. Now they're sharing the ball much better. I'm much happier with that."

Chicago forward Mistie Bass (pictured above) reached two career milestones tonight by playing in her 100th career WNBA game and logging her 1,000th minute of playing time.

With 3,419 in attendance, Chicago continues to lag behind the rest of the league although it is close to keeping pace with the Sky's numbers for last season.

For Washington, forward Crystal Langhorne led in scoring with 25 points. In the first two games against the Sky this season, Langhorne scored six and nine points respectively. Lindsey Harding, a Sky killer who finished with 13 points, knew tonight was unlike their previous contests.

It was the first time this season (in three meetings) that the Sky has been able to defeat the Mystics. Their last meeting went into overtime, but Chicago choked in the end.

“I felt like we just had some more turnovers than usual tonight,” Harding said. “After the Sky took the lead, we just could never make a run to come back in the game.”

With the loss, Washington falls to 8-5.

With the victory, Chicago has now defeated all but one of the league's top four teams at least once this season. In fact four of the Sky's six wins have come against first or second place teams with records of 8-4 or better (to date).

Chicago's next opponent, Indiana Fever, will be the one of five they haven't been able to beat.  The game, designated as "Dads and Daughters Day" begins at 5PM on Sunday June 27, at Allstate Arena.