DC You Soon! Liberty Fall to Playoff Foe in Regular Season Finale

The New York Liberty's magical 2023 regular season featured a set of cursed bookends.

New York's season ended as it began: with a loss to the Washington Mystics. Brittney Sykes capped off a team-best scoring output with a buzzer-beater off an inbounds pass with a half-second left in regulation, breaking a tie and creating a 90-88 victory for the nation's capital at Barclays Center on Sunday.

Sunday's game served as the regular season finale for both sides. New York had an outside shot of swiping the top playoff seed from defending champion Las Vegas but the loss put that out of reach. Las Vegas late topped Phoenix in Sin City in their own final showing before facing eighth-ranked Chicago on Wednesday night.

BRITTNEY SYKES GAME WINNER !

pic.twitter.com/xWRdD4EZLV
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) September 10, 2023

With the loss, the Liberty (32-8) saw a season-best eight-game winning streak come to an end and Washington became one of only two teams to beat them twice this season, joining league-leading Las Vegas. New York won't have to wait long for revenge ... or potential heartbreak ... as the teams are slated to do best-of-three battle in the opening round of the 2023 WNBA Playoffs starting on Friday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

This regular season, the most lucrative in Liberty history, previously began with an 80-64 loss in Washington D.C., one that New York has swiftly recovered from and then some: the Liberty have gone on to set numerous individual and team records of both the franchise and league variety in the first 40-game season in WNBA history.

By earning 12 of her team-best 20 points via three-pointer, for example, Sabrina Ionescu capped off the year with 128 successful triples, passing Diana Taurasi's tally from 2006 for the most in Association history. Breanna Stewart was one of three players, along with Jewell Loyd and A'ja Wilson, to surpass 900 points in a single WNBA year but a tough night from the field (9 points on 4-of-17 shooting) allowed Loyd to earn the all-time points mark.

Sunday was nonetheless a chance for the Liberty to show how far they've come, as the team hoisted a banner commemorating their triumph in last month's Commissioner's Cup final in Las Vegas. Several team legends returned to seafoam hardwood to witness the team's first league-wide honor since its Eastern Conference Finals victory in 2002.

Alas for New York, the team was unable to close the regular season out in relative style: though Washington (19-21) never led by more than 12, they were able to keep the Liberty at bay for a majority of the game with a strong shooting effort that also enjoyed 16 points from Natasha Cloud.

Off the bench, New York partly kept pace with 11 points and three highlight-reel-worthy assists from Marine Johannes while starter Jonquel Jones was one rebound short of another double-double with 19 points.

The Liberty did have one last chance to show off their propensity for playing in the clutch, erasing the Mystics' largest lead taken with 6:35 remaining. An extra period seemed to be inevitable thanks to a 16-4 run punctuated by a Stewart drive and block that left 0.5 on the clock. Sykes, however, had other plans, catching Cloud's inbounds pass in the air and getting the winner out of her hands with time to spare, igniting a Washington celebration that should set an interesting tone for the upcoming playoff series.

New York is seeking its first postseason advancement since 2015, which saw them, ironically enough, take a three-game set from the Mystics in the opening round. The Liberty and Mystics have done postseason battle on four occasions (2000, 2002, 1015, 2017), holding a 3-1 mark. Washington's outlier came in their most recent get-together, as the Mystics took a one-game second-round matchup at Madison Square Garden.