The New York Liberty played their biggest game of the season, to date, on Friday night. The Phoenix Mercury had beaten (depleted versions of) them twice in the season’s first half, and entered this matchup just two games behind them in the standings. The WNBA’s #2 and #3 seeds seem destined to collide in the semifinals, and though Jonquel Jones was not been healthy for either matchup, the Mercury have had their number this year.
Friday night, a characteristically live Barclays Center crowd, a high-level matchup with something approaching playoff stakes. What could be better?
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Pregame, Sandy Brondello was optimistic about New York’s chances to stop a Phoenix offense led by Alyssa Thomas, one that’s given them so much trouble this season: “I think with JJ back, that’s a little bit more size, a player that knows [Thomas] extremely well. I think that will help us, because you still need to put pressure on her, but then having length at the rim certainly helps us as well. You know, you start congesting her, and then she’s finding all the shooters behind her.”
But Brondello didn’t see that defensive improvement to start Friday’s game. The Mercury opened up an early 12-point lead with Thomas as the engine. She put up 15/7/5 in the first half alone. If she wasn’t spraying the ball out to 3-point shooters, AT was doing work inside…
Unlike New York’s other slow starts, though, they weren’t playing too poorly; Phoenix is just pretty damn good. So some jumpers and even layups that rimmed in-and-out were body blows, not minor inconveniences. Their offense wasn’t putting points on the board, but by getting to the line, taking open threes, and crashing the glass, they were clearly on the right track.
Then the shots starting falling. By the the half, New York had evened it up at 46…
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After a back-and-forth struggle to start the third quarter, the Liberty wrestled away control of the game. Jonquel Jones hit a buzzer-beater off the glass to end the quarter, which gave the Libs an eight-point lead.
They executed their ideal defensive coverages, playing at the level and rotating behind it, given Alyssa Thomas and her dribble-handoff partners little space to operate…
Aside from the transition opportunities this granted New York, they continued to make shots in the half-court. Sabrina Ionescu had an All-Star type of performance as the primary ball-handler, finishing with a monster 29/5/8 on 11-of-21 shooting.
Phoenix played softer coverage than Ionescu saw in their first couple matchups, when the Mercury relentlessly trapped and pressured her off screens, and Ionescu feasted on it. She hit Jonquel Jones on a few rolls, got all the way to the rim herself, and when the coverage was real soft, bombed away from three…
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The Ionescu-Jones pick-and-roll was the staple of New York’s offense in the second half, and as a result, Jones was the second-leading scorer with 20 points and 11 boards. With Phoenix’s offense running cold after the first 15 minutes, Head Coach Nate Tibbetts didn’t play rim-bound center Natasha Mack much in the second half in an effort to get more 3-point shooting on the floor, but that meant his team just wasn’t big enough to deal with Jones. Such is the challenge the Liberty present.
That eight-point lead ballooned to 18 in the fourth quarter. Though Breanna Stewart couldn’t buy a bucket, Leonie Fiebich, who never misses a shot anymore, hit three 3-pointers including a casual dagger…
“I don’t even know if I’d call [Fiebich], like, a role player, because for us she’s a huge player, not even really a role player,” said Ionescu postgame. “She’s a key piece to why this works for us. I think everyone was able to see that when she was out … she came in as, maybe people didn’t even know who she was and a little bit underrated, and now she better be on everyone’s scouting report.”
So, behind well-rounded contributions and a defense that locked in (and got a tad lucky), the Liberty ran away with this one.
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Brondello explained the shift: “We brought some urgency, we competed a little bit harder. When we’re at the point, we’re switching. I think we just started to switch, because the [defender] comes up, and they just wanted to pass it back to the short roll. So let it be a switch, and we just got a little bit more focused and disciplined in how we wanted to play.”
Phoenix will improve. Alyssa Thomas is a true, star-level engine, but Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper are still working their way back from injury, with the latter on a minutes restriction. Their offense, which went through a 25-point-in-22-minute stretch midway through Friday’s game, will improve as these players coalesce.
It’s a stretch to say the defending champions needed this victory, but they damn sure reminded Phoenix and the rest of the league that the path to a title runs through Barclays Center.
Final Score: New York Liberty 89, Phoenix Mercury 76
Next Up
Los Angeles Sparks v Washington Mystics
This was the first half of a back-to-back from the Liberty, and on Saturday night, they’ll welcome in the Los Angeles Sparks, who are playing better ball of late. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET.
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