Liberty Cannot Afford to ‘Keep Sinking’ After Loss to Fever
This New York Liberty season has been the very definition of up and down. After a slow 3-4 start, the Liberty went on an eight-game win streak. Then, they beat the Las Vegas Aces in the Commissioner’s Cup final and took down the Minnesota Lynx before dropping four consecutive games.
The Liberty’s latest loss was a 20-point defeat at the hands of the Indiana Fever. Breanna Stewart put up 26 points and 8 rebounds, but the Liberty turned the ball over 17 times, conceded 30 points off those turnovers, and couldn’t slow down Kelsey Mitchell, who finished the game with 33 points on 10-14 shooting from the field and 4-6 from deep. She also shot 13 free throws.
With that loss, the Liberty fell to 13-12 and seventh place in the standings—not where a team that still has its 2024 championship core, including two of this year’s All-Stars, should be. The team is very aware of that.
“We don’t like where we’re at right now, but we are,” Breanna Stewart said after the loss to the Fever, per a video on the Liberty’s YouTube channel. “We’re there, you know what I mean? And playing with that, realizing that we’re in it. We’re in the trenches, and we can either keep sinking or we can dig ourselves out.”
The Liberty have been on a tough stretch recently. Five of their last six games were against playoff teams, including some of the top teams in the standings. The schedule is not going to ease up either. New York’s next few games are against the Dallas Wings, a team that already handed them two bad losses, Chicago Sky and Los Angeles Sparks teams just as desperate to string together some wins as the Liberty, and a strong Aces squad.
The season is far from over, but if the Liberty keep losing games as they have been, they could quickly find themselves in a hole that’s too deep to dig themselves out of. With a team as stacked with veteran talent as this Liberty roster, it’s not just about making the playoffs. It’s about putting yourself in the best position to go on a deep postseason run. Finishing the regular season with a low playoff seed and no home-court advantage isn’t usually the way to do that.
Things could get ugly quickly for the Liberty, but this is a team led by championship veterans. There’s still a fair chance that they will turn things around.
Injuries are again the story of the season
The Liberty came into the 2025 season with high expectations. Injuries got in the way. Stewart, Jones, and Ionescu all missed time during the regular season, and Emma Meesseman didn’t even join the team until after EuroBasket. They struggled to build chemistry, finished with a disappointing five seed, and lost their first-round series to the Phoenix Mercury.
Injuries are plaguing the Liberty once again. Stewart and Jones have been healthy, but Ionescu missed the start of the season and has only played in 13 games so far. Moreover, Satou Sabally is out with a concussion after already missing a bunch of time with a cyst earlier in the season, and Leonie Fiebich is dealing with a foot injury.
But even with Sabally and Fiebich out, the Liberty have a solid rotation. Things just aren’t clicking consistently on either end of the floor.
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.