The Washington Mystics outscored the Atlanta Dream 30-15 over the course of the fourth quarter and overtime to capture their first win of the season while sending Atlanta to its second straight loss in overtime to start the season. The Dream struggled inside defensively against Crystal Langhorne and Nicky Anosike while watching their own offense grind to a halt at crunch time.
Langhorne scored a game-high 30 points while Anosike tossed in 29 of her own. Matee Ajavon added 24 points and Kelly Miller had 10 points and five assists.
Erika De Souza scored 20 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for the Dream but was not a factor down the stretch. Izianne Castro Marques had 16 points and five assists. Lindsey Harding had 11 points , four assists, and four turnovers against her former club. Sancho Lyttle added 10 points, eight rebounds, and six steals in the loss.
Once again Atlanta was its own worst enemy racking up 23 turnovers and shooting only 61 percent from the free throw line. Early on, the Dream's defense was strong enough that they got some easy baskets off of Washington turnovers. They routinely built a nine to eleven point lead but Washington always answered. As the game wore on, you could feel that perhaps Atlanta had missed on one too many opportunities to put the Mystics away.
The fourth quarter and overtime were a complete collapse as the Washington defense dictated what Atlanta could do on offense and completely took away Erika De Souza inside.
Atlanta is still a work in progress at this point as they try to incorporate new guard Lindsey Harding and await the return of Angel McCoughtry full time to the lineup. McCoughtry played three minutes in the first half but did not return in the second. No doubt she would have helped the Atlanta offense when they were struggling to score down the stretch.
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