Karlie Samuelson made a career-best five 3-point attempts without a miss and scored 19 points to lead the Washington Mystics to a 90-77 victory over the host Phoenix Mercury on Thursday night.
Brittney Sykes added 14 points and Julie Vanloo tallied 13 on 5-of-7 shooting as Washington won for the fifth time in six games. Emily Engstler added 10 points and three steals for the Mystics, while Samuelson shot 6-for-6 overall.
Brittney Griner scored 15 points and Natasha Cloud added 13 for Phoenix (17-18), which completed a 1-4 homestand.
Washington (11-23) is a half-game behind current eighth-place Chicago Sky (11-22) in a three-team battle for the final playoff spot. The Atlanta Dream (11-22) also are part of the mix.
The Mercury, who are in seventh place, clinched a playoff spot on Tuesday with a victory over Atlanta.
Kahleah Copper added 11 points and Monique Billings had 10 for the Mercury, who shot 39.7 percent from the field and were a shaky 9 of 30 from 3-point range.
The Mystics shot 52.9 percent from the field and were 14 of 28 from behind the arc.
Washington led by 18 at halftime and scored the first seven points of the third quarter to build a 57-32 advantage.
Phoenix trailed by 18 when Cloud made three free throws after being fouled with 3:07 left in the period. But the Mystics were able to push their lead back to 75-53 entering the final stanza.
The Mercury scored 12 of the first 17 points in the fourth quarter as they pulled within 80-65 on Copper’s three-point play with 6:26 remaining.
A short time later, Sykes hit a jumper and Samuelson drained her fifth 3-pointer to give Washington an 87-67 lead with 4:02 left en route to finishing off a convincing win.
The Mystics led 24-15 after the first period and then scored 18 of the first 26 points in the second quarter to hold a 42-23 advantage with 2:51 left in the half.
Samuelson made all four of her first-half shots, including three treys, while scoring 13 points. Her last 3-pointer of the half swished the net to give Washington a 50-32 lead entering the break.
–Field Level Media
