Injuries, again, piling up for Mystics after ‘devastating' Kristi Toliver injury

Injuries, again, piling up for Mystics after ‘devastating' Kristi Toliver injury originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

Ten Washington Mystics huddled up before the start of the second quarter on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Sparks. No coaches joined in, just players with the inactive Ariel Atkins and Shakira Austin wearing street clothes joining eight of the dressed Mystics as they tried to pull themselves together for a group prayer, according to Brittney Sykes.

Barely making it through the prayer, the 10 dispersed - as far as one can in their bench area. Tears were streaming down Li Meng's face, Elena Delle Donne was doing all she could to remain stoic and calm. Natasha Cloud pulled a towel up against her face and Brittney Sykes had to run off the court in the direction of the locker room.

The team was overcome with emotions as they just witnessed their teammate Kristi Toliver be carried back into the depths of the Galen Center in Los Angeles.

Toliver, bringing the ball up the floor for the final possession of the first quarter, attempted a crossover dribble on her defender. As she put her right leg forward, it buckled awkwardly and the 36-year-old went down in pain instantly clinching her knee.

Observing from the broadcast, the entire Mystics team surrounded her just beside the purple and gold Sparks midcourt logo, with towels trying to obstruct the view from fans and cameras. A sidelined Nneka Ogwumike came off Los Angeles's bench to check on her former teammate.

It was a hard moment to witness, much less see a team that has battled injuries all season long face once again, perhaps their worst of the season.

"It sucked," Brittney Sykes said postgame.

"The reaction (was) partly for the injury and partly because they've all watched [Toliver] work so hard to get back and be on the court and try to help this team," head coach Eric Thibault said postgame through extended pauses in speech. "This year, I think it's been impressive. She'd been trying to work through her own stuff physically, but she's been such a good, steady voice for the team. They have a lot of trust in her, they listen to her. But then she kind of finally gets to get back playing and be an active player as well as a good voice. Makes a three and then that happens. And it's just pretty devastating."

For Toliver in particular, the two-time WNBA champion missed over half the season dealing with plantar fasciitis in her right foot. Last Tuesday was her first game back in the lineup after missing 23 straight games (25 over the course of the season). Adding two minutes of action on Sunday night, she totaled just over 11 minutes of game time before suffering this setback.

It was a painstakingly long rehab process for a nagging injury. But it was one that every Mystic was looking forward to seeing her power through for the final stretch of the season.

She's getting an MRI on her knee Sunday night but Thibault is "not expecting good news."

'I'm not gonna lie, like emotionally I'm shot," Elena Delle Donne said following the loss. "You try to like, do the whole thing where you want to rally for her but we were sick. Just sick. What she's been through with her foot. How much she's worked to get back and she's feeling good. She's talking about even next year and all those things, so to see something like that happen at this point in her career, it just sucks. I mean, she's a GOAT and she's such a great person. So it's brutal."

Her injury is not the only affliction that the Mystics are having to persevere through. Just in this past game and Thursday night's loss in Las Vegas, here's an incomplete list of injuries:

-Delle Donne's body got contorted while being bumped by a defender vs. the Aces. She stayed in the game and had no official injury designation but was visibly nursing pain for the remainder of Thursday's game.

-Austin fell hard on her right hip vs. the Aces after getting fouled on a drive to the basket. She re-injured her right hip, missed the rest of the second half and then was out Sunday.

-Ariel Atkins took an elbow to the face vs. the Aces, suffering a nose fracture. She missed Sunday's game.

-Natasha Cloud took a downward elbow that was following through on a shot to her face on Thursday. She did not miss notable time.

Then Toliver got hurt Sunday. That was followed by Queen Egbo rolling her ankle within moments of Toliver's injury. Egbo would be well enough to return but was limited to four minutes. Delle Donne then got poked in the eye in the third quarter, though she did not miss any time.

Washington has been through it and back this season. Their 11-player roster has missed 73 combined games this season and counting.

"I mean, just trying to get into a groove with one another," Delle Donne responded when asked about the emotional and mental hurdles. "It's difficult when people are in and out. We've had endless injuries. So it's just been tough and then especially that it shows on the road, and I think that's where we've been seeing it come up but this was not a game we're proud of. We got to find a way to start playing better together quickly because playoffs are right around the corner. And we got to get ourselves into a better grove than this."

Sunday had the potential to be an uplifting contest for the Mystics. A playoff berth was on the line with a victory. Instead, the focus shifts back to what it's been all season.

From literally day one of the season, there's been no relief. From Myisha Hines-Allen's knee recovery, to Toliver's initial foot issue, to Austin's hip injury and all the twisted ankles in between, it's been one domino after another.

Through it all, they believed the adversity and injuries would make the team better. A new injury challenged them and they continued to battle injury after injury. They fought and clawed all the way through nearly a third of the season missing three of their starters and remained in the postseason field.

Over the course of the season, Washington had only entered four contests with a full roster. Twice in June, then this past Tuesday and Thursday before Austin and Atkins went down.

How the Mystics overcome the incredible emotions of Toliver's injury is unenviable. But if there's one team that's displayed the mental fortitude to make a postseason push in the final three games with that obstacle, it's Washington.

"We literally could not huddle and pray. We tried to pray we barely can make it through the prayer because of how hurt we were," Brittney Sykes said. "Even now, we're holding back tears so just respectfully- KT just let it rock out. For real just let us rock out because we've been going through a lot of [explective] this year with injuries. So it's like the next person who [explective] trips over their foot we're about to cry; so we're just trying to make it through these last three games and get to playoffs."