Road Woes, Mercury Lose 90-77 To The Mystics

The Mercury continued on the road heading way east to face the Washington Mystics. In their last game the team was able to dominate the WNBA's best rebounding team the Chicago Sky on the road in a victory and were looking to continue that success.

This time out the Mercury played like they left their jump-shot and hard hats on the tarmac. Early on the team fell behind and were trying to fight back from the opening tip.

The Mystics defense was set on not letting the WNBA's third leading scorer DeWanna Bonner win this game forcing her into bad shots (7-22) and scoreless from three despite her 20 points. It was up to Samantha Prahalis (20 points 5 assists) and Charde Houston (26 points) to carry the load late. This was the third game with 20+ for the rookie and Houston matched her career-high.

In the second half the Mercury were able to cut the lead to as low as 8-9 points, but never had enough to complete the comeback. The final score of 90-77 drops the Mercury to 4-10 and the moves the Mystics to 3-10.

Rebounding and free-throws did the Mercury in as they lost the rebounding battle by eight (38-30) and took 12 less shots from the charity stripe.

"We just didn't shoot the ball well," stated Coach Corey Gaines after the loss. "We shot 38% [from the field] and 27% [at the three point line]. They shot 31 free throws and we shot 19. That's a big difference. We made ours but I'd rather get more attempted."

Despite the great play of Prahalis and Houston the team as a whole looked tired late. They play an aggressive, attacking, and fast style with only eight players in the rotation. Not to mention they are led by a rookie point guard and are missing ALL five starters from last year.

It is going to be a tough end to the road trip as they face the always tough San Antonio Silver Stars (7-5) on Tuesday, July 3^rd at 7pm local time on Live Access (and NBATV in certain networks).

After the game the Mercury waived guard Andrea Riley after nine games and 2.8 points per game. The roster is now trimmed down to nine and they have a spot to sign another free agent or they can welcome back Diana Taurasi. When asked the Mercury stated Taurasi does not have a set timetable to return.