The Washington Mystics want to play fast on offense. Is it working?

The Mystics are the youngest team in the WNBA, so running the floor hard and wearing down opponents can help them succeed this season. And learning to make decisions faster will only help the young players develop as professionals.

Ten games in, opposing teams have noticed the Mystics’ pace. “I’ve watched their games over and over last night, and I was just going like this,” Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase told reporters before playing the Mystics on May 21, making a whooshing noise. “So yeah, they’re fast-paced. …

“I would actually do the same: get out and run, try to beat the set defense and put them to their strengths.”

Still, the Mystics aren’t playing fast enough for Johnson’s liking. “I want to go faster, and I want to be more efficient,” he told reporters on June 5, before a game against the New York Liberty.

“He’s not saying slow it down,” rookie guard Lucy Olsen told The Next on Sunday, before a game against the Connecticut Sun. “[He’s] definitely saying, if anything, go faster. He wants us to get it and run.”

Let’s look at the data to see how fast the Mystics are playing on offense and where they can improve. All data reflects games through Thursday.

What the data shows about the Mystics’ pace

There are multiple ways to evaluate how fast the Mystics’ offense plays. For starters, they rank sixth in the WNBA in possessions per 40 minutes. However, a team might play fast on offense, but its defense might force opponents into long possessions before they can get a shot off, which would reduce the team’s overall number of possessions.

In addition, the Mystics rank ninth in the WNBA with 9.7 fast-break points per game. That doesn’t suggest that they’re playing particularly fast, either, but they could be a fast team that’s just inefficient in transition.

Another way to assess the Mystics’ pace on offense is how many shots they’re getting early in possessions, since Johnson is looking for shots in the first eight seconds. They are taking 20.3% of their shots within the first eight seconds of a possession, according to calculations from PBP Stats data. That is the seventh-most in the WNBA.

Another 39.0% of the Mystics’ shots are coming nine to 16 seconds into a possession, the second-lowest share in the league. A league-high 33.1% are 17 to 24 seconds in. The remaining 7.6% are more than 24 seconds into a possession, which is possible if an offensive rebound extends the original 24-second shot clock.

These shares haven’t changed much from a year ago under former head coach Eric Thibault. Last season, 19.6% of the Mystics’ shots were in the first eight seconds of a possession.

What shots are the Mystics getting early in possessions?

Under Johnson, the Mystics are taking a higher share of 2-pointers — especially shots at the rim — in the first eight seconds than they are later in possessions. Three-quarters of their shots in the first eight seconds are 2-pointers, including 40.6% that come at the rim. After the first eight seconds, 72.4% of their shots are 2-pointers, including 29.8% at the rim.

The Mystics have been efficient on 2-pointers early in possessions. They are shooting 55.2% on all 2-pointers and 75.0% at the rim within the first eight seconds. Later in possessions, they’re shooting 45.9% from 2-point range and 69.3% at the rim.

Conversely, the Mystics are taking a slightly lower share of 3-pointers and shooting worse from there within the first eight seconds than they are later in possessions.

They are particularly effective from 3-point range between nine and 16 seconds into possessions. Close to 30% of their shots during that time are 3-pointers, and they’re making 42.3% of them.

Who’s shooting the most in the first eight seconds?

The Mystics’ guards tend to be the ones shooting in the first eight seconds. They’ve taken 64% of the team’s shots in that window, compared with 56% later in possessions. Veteran guard Brittney Sykes has taken the most shots in that window with 26. That isn’t surprising because Sykes is the team’s leading scorer and has taken the most shots overall.

If we look instead at the percentage of players’ shots that come in the first eight seconds, point guards Sug Sutton and Jade Melbourne lead the team at 29% and 27%, respectively. (Sykes is at 19%.) That could be interpreted as the two point guards trying to be extensions of their coach and take early shots when they see them.

How the Mystics can get more shots in the first eight seconds

Mystics players and coaches say the team is playing at the right pace at times, but there are lulls where the pace slows down.

“I think we have it,” Sykes told The Next on June 5. “We’ve shown glimpses. … It’s just more so executing it through an extended time.”

“We’re kind of in between,” assistant coach Barbara Turner told The Next on June 7. “Sometimes we’re too fast, sometimes we’re not fast enough.”

When the Mystics play too fast, that can lead to turnovers. They’re averaging 16.5 turnovers per game, the third-most in the WNBA. Those are giving opponents 15.2 points off turnovers per game. And perhaps equally importantly, each turnover is a lost opportunity for Mystics players to get game reps on offense.

“We would love to have 15 of those [turnovers] back and have 15 more possessions for our young players to develop against one of the better teams in the league,” Johnson said on May 28, three days after the Mystics committed 29 turnovers in a loss to the Phoenix Mercury. “So we let ourselves down there, but we’ll learn.”

Johnson also thinks the Mystics can do a better job of finding open 3-point shooters. They rank sixth in the WNBA in 3-point shooting percentage but last in attempts per game. Johnson said on June 7 that his shooters are getting open, but sometimes the Mystics don’t get them the ball in time. Missing an open shooter forces the Mystics to hunt for another open shot, so fixing that should speed up the offense.

In addition, consistency on the defensive end, including in defensive rebounding, can help the team get out and run regularly. As assistant coach Emre Vatansever told reporters on May 30, “If we get more stops, we will push more. If we don’t, now we have to find a way to play halfcourt offense.”

The Mystics’ defensive rebounding rate has improved in the past few weeks, from 69.3% in their first five games to 76.9% in their last five. And they’ve clamped down on defense late in their last five games, allowing opponents to score just 86.0 points per 100 possessions in fourth quarters.

Putting it all together?

If there was one game that showed the proof of concept for Johnson’s offense, it was Sunday’s 104-67 win over the Connecticut Sun. The Mystics shot 57.1% from the field and got 21 fast-break points while committing only 15 turnovers.

“We had one of our best days transition-wise,” Johnson said postgame. “… Maybe it won’t look always so flawless, but I think that improvement has just been something that [the players have] embraced.”

“It’s just kind of a picture of what we’ve been practicing all season and literally just getting that ball up the floor, eight seconds or less, just making strong decisions,” Sykes added. “… I’m just proud of us for the execution that we’re doing. Obviously, we’re still growing. I’d say this [was] probably the first game … where we kept going, we didn’t slow down, we didn’t let them get back in the game. We held our position.”

The Mystics are in the middle of a six-day break between games — a welcome reprieve for a team that played its first 10 games in just 24 days. This ties July’s All-Star Break as the Mystics’ longest stretch between games all season, and it’s a crucial time for learning and development.

“We look forward to having days of practice and possible days off, just to kind of get our feet back under us,” Sykes said on June 5. “We kind of hit the ground running after our first home game, and it’s kind of hard to try to learn things. And you play these teams and you see new schemes that you haven’t practiced yet. So we get to go back to the drawing board, and we get to reset a little bit.”

In four practices this week, the coaching staff’s priorities include working on ball-handling, spacing and shot selection at the pace the offense requires.

“We’re … taking some real serious teaching days in terms of individual and team concepts to get better,” Johnson said on June 7. “We have to. We can’t afford not to be getting better each and every day because there’s a bit of a gap in terms of the experience that we’re trying to make up for.

“We’ve done a solid job with that. We can only get better. The sky’s the limit.”