Lynx drop preseason opener to Elena Delle Donne, Mystics

Elena Delle Donne scored 21 points and Natasha Cloud added 18 as the host Washington Mystics beat the Lynx 78-66 in a WNBA preseason game Wednesday.

Center Sylvia Fowles led the Lynx with 16 points, playing only 15 minutes. Reserve Yvonne Turner had 12 for the Lynx, who used 14 players.

Minnesota struggled shooting, hitting 19 of 65 (29.2%) from the field, while Washington was 28 of 63 (44.4%).

"When you struggle, you can't put the ball in the hole, your mind-set's gotta be, 'We don't score, they don't score,'" Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said via Zoom. "We didn't quite have that resilience about us."

Outside of Fowles, the other four starters averaged three points and 17 minutes. Starting in place of Layshia Clarendon, Rachel Banham scored one point in 21 minutes.

"Walking out of here and saying, 'This wasn't our day,' would be putting our energy in the wrong place," Reeve said. "You gotta win those games. You still gotta win those games."

The Lynx play host to Las Vegas on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Target Center in their second and final preseason game. The regular season opens May 6 in Seattle.

Clarendon missed Wednesday's preseason game after also sitting out a scrimmage Tuesday because of leg soreness.

"Had been doing quite well," Reeve said of Clarendon after the game. "I haven't gotten all the details, but a sense that the trainer felt like we shouldn't partake yesterday and not today. We'll take precautions and we'll go get some imaging and all that good stuff when we get back to town."

Clarendon missed time at the end of last season because of a stress reaction injury in the right leg.

After two seasons away from the WNBA and an impressive performance Wednesday, Turner has positioned herself well for a regular-season roster spot with the Lynx.

"Coach Reeve has been trying to get me here for at least a little while now," Turner said. "I'm very grateful that she trusts my game and she chose my talent. I'm a hard worker and Coach Reeve talks about that a lot in practice. I think that it's finally going to be able to pay off while I'm here in training camp."

Turner, 34, played three seasons with the Phoenix Mercury from 2017-19, averaging 6.4 points, 2.3 assists and 2.8 rebounds in her last season there. Undrafted out of Nebraska in 2010, the 5-10 guard played overseas in seven different countries. Since her last season with the Mercury, she's seen time with teams in Russia, France and Turkey.

With Kayla McBride and Crystal Dangerfield still overseas and Damiris Dantas recovering from a Lisfranc injury, Turner looks like a leading candidate for a hardship deal with the Lynx. Reeve said her staff has been prepared to offer those kinds of contracts all offseason, either to players currently on the roster or in other training camps.

"Being a veteran certainly helps," Reeve said. "Yvonne, I mean, that's been very evident. It's not been her first rodeo so there's an advantage there.

"You can do a lot just by playing hard. You can impact the game just by playing hard. Yvonne is the epitome of that."

Undrafted out of Maryland this season, forward Chloe Bibby was the first rookie off the bench for the Lynx, playing about 10 miles from where she went to school. She scored four points on 1-for-6 shooting, grabbed an offensive rebound and forced a steal playing opposite former college teammate Katie Benzan.

"Chloe got for the most part open shots, shots that we ran stuff for her to get, and it just didn't fall for her," Reeve said. "I know she would've liked to have seen that with some other people around since we're back in her neck of the woods."

The two players Minnesota drafted, Kayla Jones (22nd overall) and Hannah Sjerven (28th), both came off the bench in the third quarter. Jones led all rookies with six points while also recording three rebounds and two assists. Sjerven scored four points and secured six rebounds.