Washington Mystics’ practices during Olympic break blend work and play

But with the WNBA in the middle of a four-week break for the Olympics, this wasn’t a formal game. Instead, it was a scrimmage against the Mystics’ male practice players, and the officials were assistant coach Ashlee McGee and director of player development Sefu Bernard. Both wore black and white striped referees’ shirts, and Bernard accessorized with a black sweatband and a white Gatorade towel sticking out of his shorts.

A few Mystics even wore jerseys for the occasion, though head coach Eric Thibault later said he should’ve given more notice before dubbing Saturday Jersey Day. Guard Ariel Atkins had Teresa Edwards‘ USA jersey on, and Thibault wore an Omaha Racers jersey in a nod to one of his father Mike’s past coaching stops.

For the Mystics, who are tied for 11th in the WNBA standings at 6-19, the Olympic break serves multiple purposes. It’s an important time to regroup and improve, and it allows them to reintegrate players who have missed games with injuries. But it’s also been a time when they can have fun on and off the court and let loose a little more than in a typical practice.

“It’s always an interesting block of time,” Eric Thibault told The Next on Saturday, citing how long the Mystics will go without games. “But we’re trying to make the best of it.”

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The Mystics have had an up-and-down season: After starting 0-12, they went 6-5 in their next 11 games, then lost their final two games before the break. The time off gave them an opportunity to press pause after playing 25 games in 64 days to start the season.

“[We’re] looking at the break as a reset button,” guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough told The Next on July 14, ahead of the team’s second-to-last game before the break. “… For me too, it’s just a reset, not just physically but mentally as well, and then coming back and being a better version of myself for the team.”

Several players went home or to the beach in the 12 days between the Mystics’ most recent game on July 16 and their return to practice on Monday. Three players — Julie Vanloo, Aaliyah Edwards and Jade Melbourne — are competing in the Olympics and therefore not in practice, but there’s a lot on the agenda for the 10 remaining players.

It starts with getting everyone’s basketball conditioning back. Or, as Atkins told The Next on Saturday: “Lungs and minds, I guess you could say, was the focus.”

Thibault had the group ramp up relatively slowly, focusing mostly on individual skills early in the week before getting into more team play by the weekend. “Now it’s starting to look more like a basketball practice,” he quipped on Saturday.

Before the break, Thibault said some of the priorities during these practices would be passing, finishing and making reads as a team. He and his staff didn’t plan to implement many new sets, but they wanted to work on a lot of things they don’t have time for during the season, when practices are rare and often light.

“We’re just salivating [at] all the schemes and things that we feel like we can be better at, defensively or offensively or what have you,” McGee told The Next on July 13.

One way the Mystics did that on Saturday was by playing games of 3-on-3 and 4-on-4, which did double duty as conditioning drills. “We were going like Hoop It Up, ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ type of vibe,” Thibault said, considering the jerseys as well.

Another priority has been bringing back three players who have missed a combined 49 games due to injuries this season: Karlie Samuelson, Shakira Austin and Brittney Sykes. Samuelson, who fractured her finger on June 23, is fully practicing with the team, and she has downgraded a large black brace that covered her entire finger and part of her left hand to a smaller one.

“I haven’t played a lot of basketball for a month and a half, so it feels good,” Samuelson told The Next on Saturday about regaining her rhythm. “First day is a little bit like a fish out of water, just even playing defense again and everything, but it’s fun.”

She added, “It’s really nice to have [this] time, actually. I think it would be a lot to just get thrown into games right away without getting some practices under my belt.”

Austin hasn’t played since May 31, when she banged her surgically repaired hip in a fall during a game. Her body has felt up and down at times since then, and the Mystics have been cautious, wanting her to reach a point where she feels good consistently.

She appears to be closer to that point: She has participated in each of the Mystics’ first five practices during the Olympic break and has done more than before the break, Thibault said. And even when she doesn’t feel great after a practice, her recovery and pre-practice routine the next day have helped her feel good again.

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On Saturday, Austin participated in the 5-on-5 scrimmage and looked assertive and confident. She pushed the ball in transition at times and used an array of moves to attack the rim.

Austin is “pretty much on the group plan of how we build up during the break,” Thibault said — not a more individualized plan created by the medical staff. “It’s a matter of just building loads back up, building the cardio back up.”

Sykes, returning from a foot sprain suffered on June 11, is still on a more individualized plan and sat out the scrimmage. But she did everything else in Saturday’s practice, including some live play with contact. Thibault said that it was the most she’d done to date and that she and Austin are both “probably where I thought they would be at this point.” (However, neither would be available for an official WNBA game right now.)

In addition, wing DiDi Richards has sat out many of the drills so far after she hurt her knee in the Mystics’ second-to-last game before the break. On Saturday, she was wearing a large brace on her knee and did not scrimmage.

“She’s probably the one who’s done the least on the court with the group so far,” Thibault said. “So … we’ll see how that looks a week from now.”

For all the work the Mystics want to get done, though, the break has also been lots of fun and games. That’s intentional, Thibault explained before the break, because he doesn’t want players to dread or get bored with the two and a half weeks of practice with no official games.

The coaching staff has used the Olympics for inspiration, often doing Olympic-themed competitions early in practices. Those have included relay races, handball and dodgeball. In those events, as well as in competitive basketball drills, players have earned individual points, and the points accumulate throughout the break. As of Saturday, Atkins leads the way, but forward Emily Engstler and Walker-Kimbrough are both within three points of her.

“Today was a good day for me,” Atkins said as she checked the standings after Saturday’s practice. “… I actually started from the bottom.”

She added, “We had a track and field day. … I sucked at that. That’s really why [I was] down in the dirt.”

Dodgeball, she said, was better: “[Sykes] cooked me at dodgeball. But I was one of the finalists, so that got me some points.”

For Samuelson, her kryptonite — perhaps appropriately for someone returning from a hand injury — was handball.

“I’m a bit low on the totem pole for now,” she said. “But I lost team handball the very first day and everyone [who won] got 10 points from that. So I’m finding my way back.”

Off the court, players like Atkins and Samuelson have been watching the Olympics avidly. They’ve also made time to bond with their teammates, including on a boat on the river on Wednesday. Thibault said there will be more team bonding opportunities after a few practices next week.

For Atkins, getting this break has been bittersweet, as she was left off the U.S. 5×5 Olympic team after being on the gold-medal-winning team in Tokyo. But she appreciated the opportunity to rest and visit family, and she has enjoyed the mix of work and play the Mystics have had this week.

“We’re lighthearted people. We don’t take ourselves too serious. But we are competitors at our core,” Atkins said. “… I’m a big kid at heart. I love games. I love field days, family days. So I’ve enjoyed it.”