Lynx set season-low for points in 76-59 home loss to Washington

This is not for lack of trying, or caring.

Rachel Banham came out the locker room after the Lynx lost to Washington 76-59 Friday night at Target Center. She sat down, took a question, hesitated, wiped away a tear.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm super emotional right now."

The Lynx (3-10) lost for the fourth time in five games. This time without center Sylvia Fowles, who is out indefinitely because of a cartilage problem in her right knee, but with Damiris Dantas and Moriah Jefferson, who both returned from injury.

As expected, the Lynx offense looked different without their anchor in the post. There was more space. For much of the game, there were good shots to be had.

But nobody, it seemed, could make them.

A frustrated coach Cheryl Reeve lamented her team's inability to score, adding: "And there is only so much you can do defensively. You can only get so far before you get pretty discouraged that you can't put the ball in the basket."

Hence a player, who cares deeply, frustrated to the brink of tears.

"We have to put the ball in the hole," said Banham, who came off the bench to score 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting — she and Aerial Powers (12) were the only Lynx players in double figures. "It's there, we just can't find it. It is hard. We work hard. I don't know, sometimes it just feels a little defeating. We have to keep working. I don't know what else to say."

For three quarters the Lynx held the Mystics (9-5), who were playing without Elena Delle Donne, under 40% shooting. But, with the Lynx shooting south of 33%, it didn't matter. And, ultimately, the defense broke down, too, with the Mystics going 9-for-15 in the final 10 minutes.

So many of the shots were relatively open for the Lynx, especially in the first half. But they kept slipping away. On a night when the Lynx set a season low in scoring and tied a season low in shooting, the starting five — including both Dantas and Jefferson — were a combined 10-for-38.

BOXSCORE: Washington 76, Lynx 59

Shepard tied her career high with 15 rebounds. But she shot 1-for-5. Powers was 3-for-8, Dantas 3-for-11 in her first action in nearly a year. Kayla McBride shot 1-for-5 and Jefferson 2-for-9.

"I thought this was a game we could have won," Powers said. "We had a lot of open shots, I thought. A lot of penetrating. We need to get our butt in the gym. We can't shoot that bad."

Unfortunately, listening to Reeve, that's how the Lynx have been shooting in practice, too.

Down eight at the start and down seven after a quarter, the Lynx rallied to tie the game on Dantas' three-point play with 6:49 left in the half. But the Lynx made just one of their final 12 shots of the half, which the Mystics (9-5) ended on a 15-5 run. Down nine after three quarters, Nikolina Milic had a three-point play to start the fourth.

But that was as close as the Lynx got.

Myisha Hines-Allen led all scorers with 17 points, going 3-for-4 on three-pointers. She was 5-for-5 for 12 points in the fourth quarter. Ariel Atkins had 12 points.

"We have to put a full game together," Banham said. "We'd get stops, but we didn't go down and capitalize on the hard work we did on defense. We have to figure it out."

Reeve agreed, saying the team needed to get into the gym and shoot the ball.

"I don't know what else to say about it," Reeve said. "It's frustrating for everyone, including the 6,315 fans who watched."