It's 2019 and the Washington Mystics are in the WNBA Finals. Just like last year. Two years in a row. This year behind a WNBA best offensive team in the history of the league with a superstar who just became the first WNBA player to shoot 50% from the field, 40% from beyond the arc and 90% from the free throw line. They are clearly the best basketball team of any sort here in the Washington, D.C. area.
Game one of the Finals tipped off yesterday, a game that the Mystics came out and won on their home floor just like they should. One down, two more to go until the franchise's first WNBA championship. Yes, it looked like a comfortable victory at the end of the first, second and third quarters for the home squad until a series of offensively futile possessions in the fourth allowed the opposing Connecticut Sun to catch up to within six.
So often in basketball games the team that makes a furious push to erase a pretty big deficit eventually runs out of steam and it happened to the Sun the moment Ariel Atkins hit a big three pointer from the corner and it just broke them. From there the Mystics cruised to victory. One - zero.
What a difference a year makes.
Last year the Mystics were the clear underdog in the Finals, coming in to the playoffs as the three seed and going through Atlanta in five games to get to the Seattle Storm, the best in the league with Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird leading the way for that team while Elena Delle Donne played nursing a bone bruise she suffered in the Atlanta series. It showed. The Mystics got swept 3-0.
They also spent the postseason as nomads, being bounced from Capital One Arena in favor of a construction crew working to give the place a makeover. They played their series against Atlanta on the campus of George Washington University in the West End but then were forced all the way out to Fairfax on the campus of George Mason University. Home court advantage? Not really. We went to that one Finals game there last year and almost didn't make it on time. The traffic was horrendous. That campus is not built to accommodate any sort of traffic surge.
This year the Mystics own the number one seed in the playoffs, sporting the league's best record overall and the only winning road record in the league. They might have gotten a little lucky. Minnesota's Maya Moore sat out the season and Breanna Stewart was out the entire season with an injury. Then again, the Mystics are really good.
They are also no longer nomads. Instead of bouncing between co-opted arenas this year they are playing in their home building, the brand new and oh so unimaginatively named Entertainment and Sports Arena in southeast D.C. The building is the home court of both the Mystics and Wizards' G-League franchise Capital City Go-Go as well as the Wizards main practice facility. It moved the Mystics out of the 20,000 or so seat Capital One Arena and into more intimate surroundings with a seating capacity of just a bit more then 4,000.
Yesterday's Finals game was my first Mystics game of the season. I could offer a myriad of excuses for not going earlier than that but I won't. I just didn't make it happen and I'm fortunate that I saw the team win in a Finals game this year vs. losing in their only shot last year. It was also my first trip over to ESA.
Did I already say what a difference a year makes?
ESA is a little closer to get to than EagleBank Arena at GMU but the travel time was remarkably different. There was basically no traffic to get out to SE once you got around the Nationals afternoon traffic and the parking lot was super easy to find.
The arena being rightsized for the crowd is also a huge plus. Watching the Mystics play at Capital One in a half or more empty arena (they only ever sold lower bowl tickets) was depressing. That building is not built to be rocking at 1/5 or less of its capacity. No matter how many people were there the place always looked empty. We even got moved from our end seats to second row on the side facing the television cameras once so the place would look more full on TV. The gym (because that's really what it is) was almost fully occupied on Sunday. I could see a few seats in the upper rows that were empty but the game was played in front of a full house.
This place is bare bones but it works. There's nothing fancy about the building on the outside or the inside. Sure the corridors are a little packed and the triangular space in the corner of the building that's been turned into a merch center is super small but it works. The only disappointment for me was the railing on the stairs actually blocking my view of the court. It got worse when people got to the top of the stairs and stopped to figure out where their seats are (why is this so hard) and blocked basically the whole lane area. It was worse if it was a mascot in the way.
But the biggest difference is on the court. This team is talented and this team is deep. I guess it helps when a former league MVP forces a trade to your team but while Elena Delle Donne is clearly the best player on the team / in the league it's way more than that.
Three years ago Emma Meessemann was the best player on the Mystics. She opted to sit out last season (the life of a WNBA player often involves playing a full season in Europe in addition to international competition in the WNBA offseason) to rest. Now at the age of 26 she's in her prime and coming off the bench. She can easily go for 20 plus in a game. Off the bench. There's some luck in building this team but there's also some solid drafting and team building.
Two more games. That's all this team needs to bring the first professional basketball franchise to Washington since 1978. If you told me I would have to hold season tickets for 20 seasons to see a basketball championship in this season I'd have taken it. Of course, I have season tickets for the wrong team. I hope this team does it. They and the city deserve it. I won't likely be at any more Finals games this year but I'm glad I got one in. Let's go Mystics!
