Three years removed from a championship and 25 years in their WNBA history, the Washington Mystics are literally putting their pieces back together, intending to make another run in 2022.

The Mystics were 6-3 after Saturday’s loss in Connecticut, their first road loss of the season in four games, and head coach Mike Thibault got pulled to the sunny side of the street after a loss to talk about his 2022 squad.

“I like our toughness, our togetherness, our chemistry,” Thibault said. “They are buying into how we want to play, but it doesn’t look smooth right now at times.”

The Mystics, who finished eighth in the 2020 “Wubble” season and missed the playoffs in 2021 for just the second time since 2012, are learning a lot about themselves in these early days with Elena Delle Donne’s playing time limited in her return after two seasons, the injury and illness issues that have sidelined veteran Alysha Clark, and a batch of newcomers trying to figure out how they fit into a core group that has played and won a title together.

Let’s take a look at the five things spurring the Mystics’ promising start.

The return of Elena Delle Donne.

This one is a no-brainer, the benefits of getting back one of the best players on the planet, finally healthy after missing almost all of the past two seasons with both back issues and the health issues that prevented her from taking part in the Wubble season of 2020. The Mystics are managing Delle Donne’s workload in the early days of the season, giving her days off as they did Saturday against Connecticut to keep her healthy for the duration of the regular season and what they hope will be a long postseason run. She will be back on the floor for two games this week. And when she is on the floor, she shows them what they’ve missed. Delle Donne averages 17.7 points a game while shooting nearly 48 percent from the field and 38 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

Ariel Atkins’ emergence.

Atkins, the 25-year-old who was the No. 7 pick in the 2018 draft, is quietly turning into a superstar, which seems like an oxymoron. 2021 was an excellent year for her, becoming a first-time WNBA All-Star and an Olympic gold medal winner as part of Team USA in Tokyo. She already has a WNBA Championship on her resume with Washington in 2019 and has established herself as one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, her defense spurring the Mystics’ offense. Atkins, who ranks second on the team in scoring behind Delle Donne at 15.1 points a game, is upping her game in almost every way so far this season, with a career-high field-goal percentage (44.8) and 3-point percentage (41.3) while averaging career-bests in rebounds (3.2) and assists (2.7). She is the only player to have started all nine games thus far and has scored in double figures in eight of those games.

Shakira Austin’s impressive debut.

The 6-foot-5 rookie post player has started five of nine games thus far and is getting significant minutes. Austin averages 9.6 points and 5.9 rebounds in a little more than 21 minutes a game. She put up a 20-point, eight-rebound performance on May 17 in a win over Dallas, and she ranks 12th in the WNBA in blocks.

Thibault said that Austin is playing fearlessly.

“When we interviewed her, it was one of the things we asked to get to the bottom of her psyche. One night, it’s going to be Jonquel (Jones), and the next night it’s going to be Sylvia Fowles and then Tina Charles coming up…and the impression we got was that she wasn’t scared of anybody and she wants to go play.”

“Sometimes that’s naiveness, and sometimes that’s your approach to the game, and she’s got a great approach, and I think we’ve all seen that.”

Defense. 

The Mystics, who ranked No. 3 in the league in defensive rating (94.1), allow 72.4 points a game and rank as the league’s top-scoring defense thus far. In addition to Atkins, Clark and Williams and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough are among the best defenders in the league. Mystics coach Mike Thibault said he is taking a hard look at his team’s defensive matchups in the early part of the season as he is forced into different lineups with Delle Donne and Clark on and off the floor.

“We want to make sure we have the matchups on the floor that we want,” Thibault said.

Versatility and Depth.

The Mystics have already been short-handed this season with Delle Donne’s limited time and Alysha Clark’s early injury/COVID protocol issues. But on the floor, this is an experienced group – led by Atkins, Cloud, and Myisha Hines-Allen that has played together for a long time. Washington has a strong bench that includes Elizabeth Williams (just returning from overseas), Myisha Hines-Allen, and Kennedy Burke, who claimed off waivers on the first day of the season. Burke and Williams played well against the Sun on Saturday, as did Rui Machida, and Tianna Hawkins broke out of a shooting slump to hit a pair of big 3-pointers.

Hawkins said the team has grown accustomed to filling in the gaps.

“The good thing is that we are getting a lot of reps together, and so if we play a game and we are missing someone, the next person stays ready,” Hawkins said. “Anybody can have a good night…we have pieces everywhere. Our goal for the bench is to not have any letdown; our focus is always to be aggressive and pick up where the stars left off.

Longtime WNBA reporter Michelle Smith writes a column on WNBA.com throughout the season. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the WNBA or its clubs.