Breanna Stewart, Shorthanded Liberty Stifled By Storm
Despite a spirited, shorthanded effort, the New York Liberty couldn't carry a moral victory into the win column.
Down three starters, the Liberty put up a valiant effort but it wasn't enough to avoid their second consecutive loss (their first case of back-to-back losses in nearly 400 days) and third in the last four games, as they dropped an 89-79 decision to the Seattle Storm.
Nneka Ogwumike put up 26 points on a 12-of-17 effort from the field while Skylar Diggins added 20 more. Gabby Williams earned a 12-point, 10-assist double-double as Seattle avenged last year's season sweep against the defending champion Liberty.
Breanna Stewart did what she could to keep the Liberty in the game in another return to the Pacific Northwest, scoring 18 points with nine rebounds and seven assists. Marine Johannes hit each of her first seven shots from the field to score 17 but was kept off the board in the fourth, which saw the Liberty narrow the deficit to one possession before Seattle pulled away.
New York (10-3) played without Leonie Fiebich, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones, Johannes and Rebekah Gardner into the New York lineup for their first starts of the season alongside regulars Stewart and Natasha Cloud. Nyara Sabally stepped in for Jones, who is set to miss at least four weeks with a knee injury.
With Ionescu a late scratch due to what head coach Sandy Brondello described as a "kink in her neck," the Liberty was forced to roll out some unusual combinations. It managed to keep pace in the early going, trailing by just one after each of the first two periods, even with a late defensive swoon to end the first half (letting up 15 points over the last 3:35). New York limited Seattle (9-5) to just over 38 percent from the field while Johannes was a quick 5-of-5.
But turnovers and the opposing points they yielded once again defined the Liberty's day: continued losses stifled New York's attempts to cut into the PNW lead, which reached nine before the midway mark of the third. Every time Seattle seemed poised to pull away, the Liberty seemingly had a response despite their missing women. The closest they got was three on two occasions in the penultimate minute, getting that narrow on Cloud's driving layup for the latter tally.
Seattle, however, offered a firm response with an Ogwumike triple, one that capped off a sterling 6-of-7 showing in the final period. Shooting 9-of-10 over the latter 20 (after 3-of-7 in the first half), Ogwumike became the second player in WNBA history (next to Hall-of-Famer Sylvia Fowles) to score at least 25 points on at least 65 percent from the field in three consecutive games. Conversely, Cloud was the only New Yorker to have multiple field goals in the fourth quarter as the Liberty sank only five from the field.
New York will have another go at the Storm of July 6 when it visits Barclays Center. In the meantime, the Liberty will, at the very least, have some time to recover, as they'll face the Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday night in San Francisco in part two of their four-pronged road trip (10 p.m. ET, WWOR).
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.