There have been overtime games, playoff nail-biters, blowouts, low-scoring games, and barnburners, but the New York Liberty have not lost to the Washington Mystics in nearly three years. Washington’s starting backcourt in their most recent win over the Libs was Natasha Cloud and Brittney Sykes, who hit a game-winning alley-oop…
The Liberty still have Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Jonquel Jones, and are likely even deeper than they were in 2023; depth has been a standout factor in the eight-game winning streak they took into Friday night’s contest with Washington. Rebekah Gardner checks into each game with two steals and a layup, Han Xu isn’t allowed to miss jumpers, they’re bringing Satou Sabally off the bench for crying out loud.
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You gotta wonder how long that’ll last. Granted, Satou has played it straight, claiming she doesn’t worry about coming off the bench and is solely focused on helping the team win, along with other clichés. And they are winning. And Satou becomes a focal point of the offense when she checks in. She handles in pick-and-roll, posts up, and best of all, lets it rip off the catch…
Sabally and Han Xu led the Libs with eight points each in the first half, but bench production wasn’t enough to separate from a feisty Mystics squad for the second time in six days. There wasn’t a glaring issue for the Liberty. A couple too many turnovers but, for their standards, nothing crazy. They didn’t light it up from three but didn’t shoot poorly either, they didn’t give up second-chance points or many transition opportunities either; the young Mystics just deserve credit.
Rookies Lauren Betts and Cotie McMahon combined to score 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting, every starter reached double-digits despite poor outside shooting, unafraid of attacking Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones down low, even if it didn’t always end well.
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Sonia Citron was the star for the visitors, putting up a healthy 15/6/8 line with five steals, all-around impact commensurate with her status as perhaps the league’s most underrated young player…
“She’s a great player, obviously she’s an All-Star, and she’s always moving,” said Marine Johannès postgame.
The Mystics just kept hanging around, hanging around, hanging around, benefitting from a C-grade Liberty game that looked like it was probably gonna be enough to win anyway. An excellent play-call out of a timeout gave New York a 77-69 lead with four minutes to go, and if not a dagger, it was damn sure close to it.
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But the Mystics immediately scored, scored again, and a couple minutes later, Sabrina Ionescu threw a pick-six and the game was somehow tied…
Ionescu, starting next to Marine Johannès, had another quiet game with nine points and three assists, though unlike her first two appearances off injury, she was worse than the numbers suggested. Her defense didn’t cut it, nor did her four turnovers. Ionescu has far more rust than her competitors at this point and will likely improve, though perhaps her ankle/back are still bothering her, but the Liberty needed a version of her they didn’t get on Friday night.
None of the guards played particularly well. Marine Johannès shot just 1-of-8 in 27 minutes and Pauline Astier played only ten minutes off the bench. Suddenly, Chris DeMarco has tough decisions to make with a fully healthy roster, not just deciding on a long-term starting lineup but with game-to-game rotations as well.
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“We’re getting there,” said the head coach. “I mean, obviously we want to get Satou’s minutes up, and we will. So yeah, it’s all about finding the right combinations, obviously integrating [Ionescu] back in and getting a feel for it.”
The non-Johannès starters all played 30+ minutes, even after Stewie played 35 in Chicago on Wednesday. It was the starters that did not play well enough down the stretch in this one — after Ionescu tied the game up with a driving layup (her most encouraging play of the day), the young Mystics put together an awesome two-way sequence thanks to a bad defensive gamble and missed layup from Stewie…
When asked about stepping up to the ball-handler on this play, Stewie quickly admitted, “Yeah, I shouldn’t have.”
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Kiki Iriafen, who led all scorers with 20 points, later missed a free-throw to give New York life. It wasn’t to be. Ionescu and Sabally each had 3-point prayers unanswered, and deservedly so, the Libs lost by three.
“I think they got some easy ones defensively,” said DeMarco, “and then offensively, you know, when the play broke down, I thought we forced a few things. But it’s going to happen. We’re gonna make shots, we’re gonna miss shots, I thought the effort overall was there tonight. We just — we made some mistakes when it mattered, and that’s all of us.”
New York could have scraped out a win with some more accurate shooting. Sabally and Leonie Fiebich (team-high 19 points) each made three triples, Han made two, but the team shot 29% overall from deep. But the Liberty didn’t come by their shots easily, they didn’t leave many points on the table.
Said DeMarco: “I just thought we missed some reads when we were punching the paint, for all the players, you know? I thought we forced a few things.”
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And that’s a recipe to blow the game. All of New York’s issues caught up with them in the final four minutes, leaving an extra bitter taste behind, but it is after all just one loss. The Liberty will still play in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship on June 30 (their next home game), they are still 8-1 in their last nine, even if DeMarco has some major decisions ahead of him. But New York didn’t deserve this one, not against an imperfect but young and hungry Mystics team who outplayed them when it mattered most.
It’s a long season.
Final Score: Washington Mystics 86, New York Liberty 83
Next Up
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The Liberty hit the road for four straight games out West, starting with the Los Angeles Sparks. Tip-off is scheduled for Sunday evening at 8:00 p.m. ET.
