Mystics look forward to facing Fever without Clark in Baltimore

WNBA phenom Caitlin Clark won’t be on the court Wednesday as her Indiana Fever take on the Washington Mystics in Baltimore.

The Mystics won’t miss her.

The Mystics moved the game to CFG Arena — which features more than triple the seats of the 4,200-capacity CareFirst Arena, which hosts most Washington home games — due to high demand to see Clark.

The Fever announced this week that a quad injury will sideline the three-point shooting sensation for at least the next two weeks.

The Mystics said it won’t affect their approach, even if Clark’s absence will disappoint her legions of fans, who routinely pack arenas around the country.

“It really doesn’t change much for us, whether she’s playing or not. We’re still going to keep the pressure up, make them take difficult shots and just rebound,” Mystics center Stefanie Dolson said Tuesday. “As long as we finish with boxing out, we have a great chance of winning that game.”

Despite the overwhelming focus on the visiting Fever, who sell out arenas and break TV viewership records on a regular basis, the Mystics aren’t worried. The first WNBA game in Baltimore is the reason for celebration, even if it won’t feel like a traditional home game.

Last year’s sold-out game against the Fever at the District’s Capital One Arena felt like a neutral-site game with Clark’s No. 22 jersey dotting the stands.

“Any fans are good fans. For us, the more eyes the better,” Dolson said, referring to last year’s matchups with Indiana. “It just grew our fan base even more. No matter who we’re playing, if a lot of fans are there, we’re happy.”

Wednesday’s trip up Interstate 95 will be a homecoming for Mystics coach Sydney Johnson. The Princeton product spent much of his childhood in Charm City, including a championship season in his final year at Towson Catholic High School.

“It’s just another sign of what the sport is commanding: the nation’s attention, the world’s attention, in terms of the best basketball league in the world for women,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen a league like this; just every single team is so good. It’s remarkable. So it’s really cool we can go down the road a bit and still draw the way we expect to.”

The WNBA’s explosive growth has been widely attributed to Clark, who became a phenomenon while breaking the NCAA scoring record at Iowa. But, according to players and executives around the league, the growing media spotlight has been a long time coming.

“The popularity of women’s sports was in a much different state back in 2005. … ” Mystics owner Ted Leonsis wrote on X, celebrating 20 years since purchasing the franchise. “We’ve seen astronomical growth in demand for these exceptional athletes. TV viewership has soared, local fan engagement is only building, and league attendance reached an all-time high last season right here in DC.”

As the WNBA kicked off a highly anticipated 2025 campaign, buzz around the Mystics was quiet. The franchise brought in Johnson and new general manager Jamila Wideman in the offseason but failed to add impact players outside of the draft.

It looked like a rebuild, the kind that the District’s basketball fans have grown accustomed to thanks to the Wizards.

But the Mystics shocked the WNBA by winning their first two games. A three-game West Coast road trip brought consecutive losses, but each game was tightly contested.

Sunday’s 62-68 loss to the Phoenix Mercury was the season’s largest margin of defeat for the league’s youngest roster. In each loss, the Mystics have held a late lead before falling short.

The Mystics would be undefeated if the WNBA’s 40-minute games were three minutes shorter.

“It’s just part of the growth. There’s no shortcuts,” Johnson said. “We have a few veterans that we’re leaning on, but we’ve also got ‘young vets’ now. They have been forced to become ‘young vets.’”

The first-year coach was referring to the first- and second-year players who have jumped into leadership roles for the Mystics. No players remain from the 2019 championship team. Accountability comes from players like second-year forward Aaliyah Edwards and 24-year-old center Shakira Austin.

But the biggest spark has come from Washington’s prized rookies: guard Sonia Citron and forward Kiki Iriafen.

The third and fourth overall selections in last month’s WNBA draft became immediate starters for the Mystics. Citron ranks second on the team in scoring, reaching double figures in each of her first five games.

Iriafen, who is averaging 13.8 points per game, also leads the team in rebounds and has established herself as a physical defender.

Iriafen’s first month in the league saw her match up against WNBA legends like Brittney Griner, Tina Charles and A’ja Wilson. The rookie held her own.

“For her to go toe-to-toe with Hall of Famers and look like there’s not a huge gap is something I didn’t expect right away,” Johnson said. “It’s like, holy cow, she’s just about leveling that matchup.”

The coach noted that he expects Iriafen and the rest of the Mystics to bring that same intensity to Baltimore. The Fever might be playoff contenders, but his squad is starting to carve out an identity through five games.

“For one, we like being around each other. That’s a good place to start,” Johnson said before praising the “synergy” between players like Iriafen and Citron. “This team remains young. We’re only a few weeks in, so there’s still some learning there, but I like the chemistry.”