Let’s say the Mystics have lost Delle Donne — what now?

The Washington Mystics may not have Elena Delle Donne for the rest of the WNBA Finals. But their uncommon depth means they’d still have a shot.

Coach Mike Thibault and the rest of the Washington Mystics must now deal with a stroke of miserable luck. In the middle of the WNBA Finals, the team may now be without its franchise player, league MVP Elena Delle Donne, after she herniated a disc in her back just a few minutes into Game 2. While the Mystics kept the rest of the game close into its final minutes, the Connecticut Sun pulled away with a 99-87, stealing a crucial away game as the 1-1 series now shifts to Connecticut on Sunday afternoon.

The Mystics are no doubt going into overdrive to do whatever can possibly be done to get Delle Donne healthy for Game 3. But Washington also has to begin preparations for playing the rest of the series without the best player in the league. If you’re the Mystics, what can you do to give yourself the best chance at winning two of the next three games?

The good news is, if there’s any WNBA team that is capable of sustaining the loss of its best player, it is the Mystics. The best-ever offense that Washington used to blow out so many of its regular-season opponents wasn’t just the best ever because of Delle Donne — it was also because the team has a perfectly complimentary starting lineup and uncommon bench depth. The whole combination allowed Delle Donne to play the fewest minutes per game in 2019 out of her six fully healthy seasons in the league.

The most crucial player on the Mystics if Delle Donne is out becomes Emma Meesseman. Meesseman is probably one of the league’s most deeply underrated players. Playing behind the MVP Delle Donne limited Meesseman to the relatively low 23.6 minutes per game, but the truth is that Meesseman is one of the few bigs in the entire league who can respectably mirror Delle Donne’s skill-set. At 6-foot-4, Meesseman is a skilled outside shooter, a prolific individual post scorer, and — maybe most crucially — shares Delle Donne’s ability to pass creatively while also taking care of the ball.

There were 65 minutes-qualified forwards and centers in the league this year: Delle Donne ranks a strong 20th in assists per minute, while Meesseman is tied with Candace Parker for first overall. If you rank those same 65 bigs in turnovers per minute, it’s mostly low-usage players who turn the ball over least — like Washington’s own LaToya Sanders, who is second-best in the league. The high-usage Meesseman is a strong eighth overall, still only fractionally behind the leader: Delle Donne.

Meesseman’s intense schedule with the Belgian team in FIBA play could go a long way to explaining the Mystics’ dismal 0-3 regular season record while missing Delle Donne. One game that Delle Donne missed was the season opener at Connecticut: Meesseman was just returning to the team after missing all of 2018 to prepare for the FIBA World Cup. Meesseman missed the second game that Delle Donne missed, a July 10 loss to the Phoenix Mercury, while playing in FIBA Eurobasket. The third game Delle Donne missed, on July 13, was Meesseman’s return from the tournament on the other side of the Atlantic, and still only her fourth appearance of the season. If Delle Donne misses Game 3 of the Finals, it would be the first time that the Mystics would roll into a game with Meesseman fully integrated into the rhythm and timing of the team.

Delle Donne has only sat out 62 minutes in Washington’s six postseason games, with more than half of them coming after the early Game 2 injury. It’s a small sample size, but the film backs up what the on/off numbers say: the Mystics do not miss a beat on offense with Delle Donne sitting.

With Delle Donne, Washington’s offense used high tempo, floor spacing, and off-ball movement to create high-percentage looks and high assist totals. The challenge for the defense stays remarkably similar with Meesseman, who has the floor vision and unselfishness to hit a cutting teammate with a pass even when her number is called for a post-up:

Meesseman’s high-level understanding of offensive flow means that she is also making valuable decisions that don’t show up on her already-impressive stat sheet. Although Meesseman does not touch the ball on this possession, which ends in a Kristi Tolliver layup, she is essential to the bucket. Watch how, after Meesseman sets a screen, she immediately clears out to the perimeter. Because the Connecticut big, Morgan Tuck, most honor Meesseman’s floor-encompassing range, she must step away from the basket as well. This move basically parts the seas for Tolliver:

This has all been good news for the Mystics. The bad news is that the team’s defensive performance has absolutely fallen apart without Delle Donne on the floor in the playoffs, with opponents scoring more often than even Washington’s skilled Meesseman-focused offense. Connecticut’s years of continuity between its five starters means that they also roll out one of the most skilled offenses in the league — an offense that, just like Washington’s, revolves around an all-round skilled big, in Jonquel Jones. Between Jones’ inside and outside skills as an individual scorer, Courtney Williams’ proven ability to shoot herself into some of the hottest streaks in the league, and Alyssa Thomas’ habit of turning innocent defensive rebounds into quick fast breaks, the Sun will score buckets in bunches on anybody. The issue is, in Game 2, Washington handed them a bunch of extra buckets as well.

Moving forward, Washington needs to play defense with more patience, and more trust in their teammates. Perhaps the different members of the Mystics felt, unconsciously, like they needed to hit a figurative home run on every possession in Game 2, over-reaching to get steals and blocks now that Delle Donne was out. The result was a bunch of unfocused double-teams that, like on this possession, actually created openings for Connecticut players:

While the likes of Jones and Williams will ultimately score some improbable buckets over the course of a game, Connecticut will ultimately be less efficient if Washington forces those players into one-on-one scenarios where the ball stops moving.

Another scenario that repeated itself a number of times in Game 2 was Washington losing rebounds off of Connecticut misses by not boxing out. Connecticut got scarily close to out-rebounding Washington on this half of the floor in the game, with Connecticut securing 17 offensive rebounds against 21 defensive rebounds by the Mystics. The issue didn’t appear to be a lack of effort on Washington’s side: frequently, multiple Mystics players would be in-position underneath the basket. But, without boxing out Connecticut players — including the tallest player in the series, the 6-foot-6 Jones — the Sun would usually find a way to grab the rebound. Watch how Connecticut gets bailed out of a slow-moving possession in a crucial fourth-quarter moment when Thomas is allowed to collect a Jones airball:

The Mystics will save a huge handful of baskets in Game 3 if they begin to make the Roy Hibbert-style sacrifice to box out the Connecticut player, and trust that a teammate will collect the board.

For any neutral fan who’s watching the Finals, it does feel disappointing to see Delle Donne struggle with an unforeseen injury in the biggest moment of the season. She had put together such a historical year, and it would feel wrong to see her watching the championship-deciding games from the bench. But even if she is out, the series is still tied 1-1, and the trophy will not simply be handed to Connecticut. Both teams in this series still have good reasons to believe that the trophy should be theirs.