5 takeaways from the 2023 Mystics schedule originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The WNBA unveiled the longest season in league history on Wednesday with 40 games on their docket for the upcoming 2023 season. This season will tip off on Friday, May 19 and conclude on Sunday, Sept. 10.
Eight of the league’s 12 teams, including the Washington Mystics, will start their season on opening night. Washington will host Sabrina Ionescu and the New York Liberty to tip things off for them. As a part of the historic 40-game season, the Mystics will play four teams three times and seven teams four times.
Washington enters the year after a fifth-place regular season finish in 2022. It was their best regular season result since winning the championship back in 2019. Still, a first-round playoff exit to the Seattle Storm ended the season earlier than the championship-oriented squad intended.
But in many ways, then-head coach Mike Thibault saw parallels in how the 2022 season came together which could propel them to success in 2023 – exactly how the franchise performed in 2018 and then won the following year.
It will be Eric Thibault’s first season as the coach in charge after his father stepped away from coaching this offseason. Mike Thibault will remain the team’s general manager as he has done since he joined the organization before the 2013 season.
Everything is expected to translate to similar results, after all, there’s not much organizational change happening.
How will the opening year of the Eric Thibault era transpire? Here are five takeaways from the schedule release.
The Commissioner’s Test
Nothing like getting thrown to the wolves to start your coaching career like what Eric Thibault will have to navigate.
After the first week of the year, we’ll have a good idea if the Mystics could contend in the Eastern Conference Commissioner’s Cup. For each of the past two seasons, Washington hasn’t factored into that race. Both years have their explanations as to why the Mystics couldn’t contend. From the wide-ranging injuries and integration of Tina Charles in 2021 and the build-up of Elena Delle Donne in 2022, it simply wasn’t in the cards.
A shame for one of the more successful WNBA franchises of late to not be in the conversation for a mid-season competition. Since its inception, the Mystics are 9-11 in those contests and placed fifth and fourth in the conference.
Both times the East’s winner finished 9-1 in the Commissioner’s Cup to qualify.
To start this year, the Mystics’ first four games are all Commissioner’s Cup contests. One against the Liberty, a home-and-away series against the Connecticut Sun and then a road trip to the Chicago Sky. None of those games will be straightforward against three playoff teams. Washington will need a hot start to avoid falling behind in the Commissioner’s Cup conversation for the third straight year.
The Commissioner’s Cup is an annual mid-season competition that places the top team in each conference against the other for a standalone game that allows the players to compete for a cash bonus. The first two games of the regular season from each of their five conference opponents count in the Commissioner’s Cup standings. After 10 games, the team with the best Commissioner’s Cup record in the East will face off against the top team in the West. That game will not count in the regular season standings.
Early season back-to-back
Washington will have a back-to-back this year and it will come within the first couple of weeks. Fortunately for Washington, the back-to-back will be at home on June 2 and 3 against the Dallas Wings and Minnesota Lynx, respectively.
Back-to-backs in the WNBA are not a rarity, they happen with the condensed nature of the WNBA’s scheduling and sometimes venue limitations. Still, coaches are forced to draw a big red circle around them when the schedules come out because of the challenges they present.
After the demands of last year – a 36-game schedule in roughly a three-and-a-half-month span – teams were assuming that things would be more spread out. For the most part, they are with this exception.
Sleepless in Seattle
Washington won’t have to wait long to try and get revenge against the team that knocked them out of the postseason in 2022. In the second weekend of June, the Mystics will travel to the Pacific Northwest for two games in three days against their rivals.
It’s another scheduling quirk where the schedule-makers did not favor the Mystics. Seattle is one of four teams that Washington will play only three times this year. While it could be seen as a relief that they play them one less time than most of the others, this series happens to grant two home games for the Storm and both coming one after another.
It’s eerily similar to their playoff series where Washington was playing at a major disadvantage just because of the makeup of the format. Despite the expansion of the playoffs, the Mystics did not get a home game in their lone playoff series since they lost both of the first two games in Seattle.
Traveling to the Storm is never easy, perhaps the two games in succession will give Washington an advantage, at least in the second leg. The good news, one of these games (if not both) will likely be on national TV.
Seattle heads to D.C. on July 11 for their lone trip to the nation’s capital.
Three Aces
Just like Seattle, the Mystics have only three games against the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces. Two of the three will also be on the road.
But all three of those games will come in a three-week span at the most crucial part of the WNBA season. The first game is on Aug. 11. The last comes on Aug. 31. How this regular-season series plays out will likely have huge implications on the playoff standings.
It’s important because an unfortunate theme for Washington over the past three years has been its inconsistencies. A majority of that is due to injuries. Having those games so close to one another could put either team in a difficult position. Typically, this series would be spread throughout the year. Odds are that at least one of those games will have both teams at full strength.
A handful of demanding games in such a short period of time could prove costly, on either side. Both franchise figure to be in the championship hunt in 2023. If one team has the other’s number losing the head-to-head at that time of the year will be something to pay attention to.
An 0-3 result is not something Washington could afford late in the year.
Late-season West Coast road trip
There aren’t too many challenging road trips for the Mystics this year. Just two three-game sets from July 26-30 and Aug. 31- Sept. 5. Other than that, the road contests are just one-off games or just two in a row.
The latter of their three-game road trips will be the most important of the year. It will be their final Aces matchup and then they travel down to Los Angeles before swinging over to Phoenix.
Just like the crucial series of games against Las Vegas, it’s imperative to be gaining momentum at the end of the season. Long road trips often make that difficult to do. The Aces, Sparks and Mercury all figure to be in the postseason as well so it’s not like there will be a break in competition during that stretch.
Sometimes it’s not about who you face but when you play them. If Washington is searching for wins late in the year, they may be hard to come by.
Full 2023 Washington Mystics Schedule
Fri. May 19 at 7 p.m. – New York Liberty at Washington Mystics
Sun. May 21 at 1 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Connecticut Sun
Tues. May 23 at 7 p.m. – Connecticut Sun at Washington Mystics
Fri. May 26 at 8 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Chicago Sky
Fri. June 2 at 7 p.m. – Dallas Wings at Washington Mystics
Sat. June 3 at 7 p.m. – Minnesota Lynx at Washington Mystics
Fri. June 9 at 10 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Seattle Storm
Sun. June 11 at 6 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Seattle Storm
Tues. June 13 at 7 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Indiana Fever
Fri. June 16 at 7 p.m. – Phoenix Mercury at Washington Mystics
Sun. June 18 at 3 p.m. – Chicago Sky at Washington Mystics
Thurs. June 22 at 8 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Chicago Sky
Sun. June 25 at 3 p.m. – Washington Mystics at New York Liberty
Wed. June 28 at 7 p.m. – Atlanta Dream at Washington Mystics
Fri. June 30 at 7:30 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Atlanta Dream
Sun. July 2 at 4 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Dallas Wings
Fri. July 7 at 7 p.m. – Indiana Fever at Washington Mystics
Sun. July 9 at 2 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Connecticut Sun
Tues. July 11 at 7 p.m. – Seattle Storm at Washington Mystics
Wed. July 19 at 11:30 a.m. – Indiana Fever at Washington Mystics (at Capital One Arena)
Fri. July 21 at 7 p.m. – New York Liberty at Washington Mystics
Sun. July 23 at 3 p.m. – Phoenix Mercury at Washington Mystics
Wed. July 26 at 8 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Minnesota Lynx
Fri. July 28 at 8 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Dallas Wings
Sun. July 30 at 3 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Atlanta Dream
Fri. Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. – Los Angeles Sparks at Washington Mystics
Sun. Aug. 6 at 3 p.m. – Los Angeles Sparks at Washington Mystics
Tues. Aug. 8 at 10 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Phoenix Mercury
Fri. Aug. 11 at 10 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Las Vegas Aces
Sun. Aug. 13 at 1 p.m. – Chicago Sky at Washington Mystics
Fri. Aug. 18 at 7 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Indiana Fever
Sun. Aug. 20 at 3 p.m. – Dallas Wings at Washington Mystics
Tues. Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. – Connecticut Sun at Washington Mystics
Sat. Aug. 26 at 7 p.m. – Las Vegas Aces at Washington Mystics
Tues. Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. – Minnesota Lynx at Washington Mystics
Thurs. Aug. 31 at 10 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Las Vegas Aces
Sun. Sept. 3 at 7:30 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Los Angeles Sparks
Tues. Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. – Washington Mystics at Phoenix Mercury
Fri. Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. – Atlanta Dream at Washington Mystics
Sun. Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. – Washington Mystics at New York Liberty
