Lynx coach unhappy after win, Mystics coach upbeat after loss

"Usually I am the first to say a win is a win, but I can't say this," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said, according to a Washington Mystics' news release after Wednesday's road game for her team at the Verizon Center.

The Lynx won 79-77 on Lindsay Whalen's rebound of her own missed shot with one second left.

"Usually, pretty or ugly, I am happy with a win, but I am going to express to my players that I am extremely disappointed," Reeve said. "The good news is when we got down to crunch time, players make plays, and we made some plays. Lindsay made some tough plays in there and, obviously, when it's all said and done I will go home and be happy that we actually won the game."

But the Lynx seemed in complete control, shooting 66 percent in the first half and taking a 51-31 lead at intermission. They build the lead to 24 points early in the third quarter.

"It was a tough loss, but we fought, we never quit," Mystics coach Trudi Lacey said. "In a lot of ways, we sort of just ran out of time; we didn't lose the game.

"I felt like our execution on offense was much better in the second half. We have been working diligently on valuing the basketball and I thought we did that, especially in the second half. We really focused defensively in the second half and really limited them to one shot.

"For the most part in the second half I feel like we executed our game plan. You have to give Minnesota credit, they have a great team and they made plays at the end."

"I think Washington understood it was a 40-minute game," Reeve said. "I thought we played well at the first half, and then for some reason we didn't understand we needed to continue to play. Certainly towards the end of the second quarter we gave Washington some life, some momentum."

Then the Lynx unraveled in the third quarter, just about the time center Taj McWilliams-Franklin went out with back spasms and never returned.

"There was this section where we had multiple turnovers," said Whalen who had seven assists and six turnovers. "I just got really frustrated with that. I just wanted to make a play no matter what; I think we all wanted to make a play down the stretch because there were different parts of the game where we felt like we let our team down."

Said Lacey, the coach of the 1-2 Mystics: "Once everyone started doing their job it just fell into place for us. We just have to continue to do this. It is just one game and we didn't finish the game. We still have a lot of work to do, so we will just stay after it."

Seimone Augustus was one of four Lynx, all starters, in double figures. She had 15 points.

"We were trying to end the game with our defense, that's what we pride ourselves on. We have crunch-time players, and at the end we made plays. We are a championship caliber team so hopefully we will show that more."

The Lynx (5-0) have a huge game on Friday at Connecticut (3-0) when the number of WNBA unbeatens will fall from three to two. Indiana (3-0) is the other.