Liberty-Mystics Preview

By PAUL DIGIACOMO

(AP) -- The New York Liberty appear to be getting on track after the worst start in franchise history. The Washington Mystics can't make that same claim.

New York goes for a third consecutive win while it looks to end a five-game road skid against the Mystics, who will be trying to avoid their second straight 1-5 start Friday night.

The Liberty were outscored by an average of 17.4 points in dropping their first five games before beating Indiana 87-72 on Sunday and Atlanta 79-74 on Tuesday.

Guard Cappie Pondexter led the way in both victories, scoring 25 points against the Fever and 26 versus the Dream after failing to reach the 20-point mark in any of the first five games.

"Being 0-5, I never experienced that before anywhere in any part of my career," Pondexter said. "It was awful. I knew we had to turn things around."

Pondexter scored nine of the Liberty's 18 points in the fourth quarter Tuesday.

"We had to refocus the last couple of days after we lost five in a row," she said. "It was just a case of me being aggressive. The important thing for us is to focus on what we need to do to win."

Guard Leilani Mitchell has totaled 31 points in the back-to-back wins after scoring a combined 19 during the winless start.

"Of course, we knew we were a better team than 0-5," Mitchell said. "But it's a long season and the league is so good. Any game could go either way. It was very frustrating to lose those five games, but we had to remain positive."

Washington is dealing with its own frustration after another poor start. The Mystics lost their third straight Sunday, 94-86 at Connecticut.

They trailed the Sun by 14 points with less than two minutes left in the third quarter before cutting their deficit to three with a little over two minutes remaining in the game.

Connecticut, though, pushed the lead back to eight with 1:06 left.

"We have a lot of fighters on our team and we're going to keep on fighting," said forward Crystal Langhorne, who had a season-best 25 points and five rebounds. "We're going to keep playing hard and we're going to get a win."

The Mystics may have a chance to pick up a win Friday, as New York hasn't earned a victory in Washington since Aug. 16, 2009, and has been outscored by 15, 26 and 23 points in three road losses this season.

Updated June 7, 2012