Breanna Stewart Had a Stark Wake-Up Call for Liberty Teammates After Latest Loss

Breanna Stewart is not impressed with how the reigning champions are looking ahead of their title defense.

Breanna Stewart was not at all happy with the Liberty’s effort on Saturday night. / @SNYLiberty / X

The Liberty might be the reigning champions of the WNBA, but they haven’t been playing like it of late. Such was the case on Saturday night, with New York getting blown out on the road by the Phoenix Mercury, 83–63.

After a tightly contested first half, the Mercury held the Liberty to just 24 points in the second half. It was the fourth of four meetings between the teams in the regular season, and Phoenix won three of them.

Liberty superstar Breanna Stewart was not happy with her team’s effort after the game. Asked about the turnovers and second-chance points New York gave up on the night, and the message in the locker room, Stewart did not hold back.

“It’s not good enough. It’s not gonna cut it. Any of the things that we’ve done today, and honestly, for a while, is not going to get us to where we want to be,” Stewart said. “This is not a championship level basketball at this point, and everyone needs to recognize that and understand that we need to get there. That starts with the mindset and then putting it onto the court.”

"This is not championship-level basketball at this point and everybody needs to recognize that and understand that we need to get there and that starts with the mindset and then putting it onto the court."

- Breanna Stewart after last night's loss pic.twitter.com/c46cmjIp7m

— New York Liberty Videos (@SNYLiberty) August 31, 2025

With the loss, the Liberty move to 24–16 on the season, and currently sit in fifth place in the league standings. After starting the season 9–0, New York now has a losing record dating back to mid-June, with four regular season games left to play.

The Liberty have plenty of talent to make a run at repeating, but as Stewart explained, the team needs to get its act together quickly if they’re going to play their best basketball in the playoffs, because right now, their best basketball is pretty far off.

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