Shakira Austin Says Mystics Need ‘Another Level’ to Win Playoff Series

Atlanta ended the Washington Mystics’ season Sept. 30 at CareFirst Arena, winning 93-75 to finish a two-game sweep in the first round.

Six weeks later, Shakira Austin laid out what she believes it will take to get past that round. She was the guest on the Nov. 11 episode of Post Moves with Candace Parker & Aliyah Boston, an AMP Sports Original Series.

The fourth-seeded Dream won Game 1 92-77 in Atlanta. In Game 2, Allisha Gray scored 22 points and Jordin Canada had 19, 13 of them in the fourth quarter, The Associated Press reported. Atlanta reached the semifinals for the first time since 2018 and went on to the Finals, where Golden State won the championship.

Washington, the No. 5 seed, was in the playoffs for the first time since 2023. All but three Mystics players were in their first postseason, The IX reported, and Mystics coach Sydney Johnson was coaching in the WNBA playoffs for the first time. The franchise has now been swept in best-of-three first-round series in 2022, 2023, and 2026.

Austin said the Mystics stayed in a middle ground in 2025. They were competitive and had a foundation, she said, but were not fully committed to landing a free agent or stringing along veterans to make the playoffs.

“This offseason, after talking with Coach Sydney and honestly just expressing how competitive I want to be this year, I felt like we can make playoffs,” Austin said. “I know it’s really hard to find a balance between trusting the process of a rebuild — I’ve never been through that experience — but also just coming in and not settling, not being OK with being OK. I think just that approach coming into training camp just really set our tone differently. It’s been really night and day between the Mystics last year and the Mystics this year.”

Washington went 28-16, up from 16-28. The 12-win improvement was the second-largest in the league. A four-overtime win over Portland on June 28 got the Mystics back to .500. A 93-77 win at Indiana on Sept. 20 pulled them within a game of the fifth-place Fever. Washington finished fifth.

Washington had the second-best defensive rating in the league during the regular season, behind the champion Valkyries. Its offensive rating ranked 12th out of 15 teams.

The Mystics outrebounded their opponents in 40 games, a WNBA single-season record. Austin had a defensive rating of 101.1, first among centers who averaged at least 25 minutes. Sonia Citron held opponents to 37.0% shooting as the closest defender. Among players who defended at least 125 shots, that was the best mark in the league, per Second Spectrum.

Early-season games against New York, some of them in overtime, gave a young roster its first real tests, and Austin said the Mystics sometimes failed them.

“We were the scrappy team, we did the little things,” Austin explained. “Our foundation was just defense. How can we dictate and disrupt somebody else’s stuff? Because our offense might not be where we want it to be right now. Just being able to lean on that defense more, I think, really helped our chemistry. And then we were just able to grow from that.”

The roster is built on recent lottery picks. Citron and Kiki Iriafen went third and fourth in 2025, and both were named All-Stars in each of their first two seasons. Washington took UCLA center Lauren Betts fourth in 2026. Citron and Iriafen were added to the U.S. roster for the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup.

Some players arrived from college not knowing ball-screen terminology, Austin said, and there was an IQ gap between the college and professional games.

“Now that we’ve built our foundation, now we know why we wanted to do certain things,” Austin said. “We’re seeing that defenses might take away X, Y, and Z. Now I think it’s about just having a flow off of that, and I don’t think that could have came with anything other than our opportunity to play and the experiences they’ve learned along the way. As we continue to just build and want to get to playoffs, but also win series, get to hopefully a Finals one year, I just think it’s gonna take another level. We’ve been leveling up every year. So I have faith, and we’re gonna make those adjustments.”

Washington’s offense ran against the league’s grain, as Austin described it. Everybody else shoots 3-pointers, runs, and plays in transition.

“We’re not shooting that thing like that,” Austin said. “Hopefully we’re gonna get there. I’m gonna be in the gym. But we just had a different style. So just figuring out how to dominate, but also adjust to what people are trying to take away, I think that’s the biggest thing.”

The 2027 season is expected to start May 7, with a record 50 games per team.