Massacre at Verizon Center

By Keith Henry

WASHINGTON- From the opening tip, the Washington Mystics were outmatched, outgunned and dominated by the defending WNBA Eastern Conference champions. Detroit scored the first nine points of the game and never let their foot off the gas in a 99-62 obliteration of the Mystics at the Verizon Center.

Whether it was in the paint, at the free throw line or turnovers, the Shock took Washington to school and never let up in every phase of the game. “We just look like we didn’t want to be out there tonight. That’s what it look like. Detroit embarrassed us at home and made us look like we never practiced a day in our life,” said the Mystics' Monique Currie.

The Mystics defense had no answer for Deanna Nolan, who connected on her first 11 shot attempts from the field to end up with 26 points on the night. Nolan scored 19 of those points in the first quarter alone. Detroit went up 33-12 at the end of the quarter. The Shock never let their foot off the gas the rest of the game. Nolan said, “The past couple of games, we had a habit of being up at the half 18 or 20 plus points and letting up, letting the teams back in and they’ve been pulling out those wins. We just wanted to come into that second half and be focused, keep running it.”

Shock head coach Bill Laimbeer said, “19 points in the first quarter. When Deanna gets on a roll like that, just give her the ball and get out of the way. She is fun to watch when she does that.”

Detroit (16-7) was up by as many as 46 points in the fourth quarter on their way to an embarrassment of huge proportions in front of a mostly quiet Verizon Center crowd. The Shock came in and dressed down the Mystics at home. Detroit tied the team record for their largest margin of victory in a game. The Shock beat the Mystics at the Verizon Center 93-56 on June 14, 2003. Detroit also beat the Indiana Fever 111-74 at the Palace on June 18, 2000.

Coco Miller said, “It was just tough, you know. We just have to move on. Go back to practice and try to work on the things we did wrong and just get better. That’s all we can do.”

The Mystics was on the second game of a back-to-back in which they lost to New York 77-56 at Madison Square Garden the previous night.

Washington (8-14) attempted to go along with a game plan of matching Detroit’s physical play. But that wasn’t happening as the Shock outmuscled the Mystics in the paint 40-20. “We know Detroit is a very physical team. So we just tried to be physical with them. Deanna Nolan just got off early and Detroit built a huge lead early on. So it was kind of hard to fight back from that,” said Coco Miller.

Laimbeer said, “We’re pretty strong on the points in the paint. We have big post up players. Cheryl Ford is starting to play well offensively right now. We ran and got some easy transition baskets.”

Detroit's Cheryl Ford said, “That was our biggest focus. Coach told us to attack the post and that’s what we did. The guards did a great job on getting us the ball.”

Mystics head coach Tree Rollins didn’t change much of the game plan from last week’s 79-66 loss at the Palace. But the ultimate result remained the same as last week, a loss. Tree stated, “I wouldn’t say we were doing something different. Offensively, we we’re doing the same things that we were doing last week. Defensively, we were doing the same thing other than tonight. We were playing a little more zone because they were beating us inside. Other than that, same team, same coach, different results.”