Liberty Drops 4th in a Row to Tina Charles, Sun
The New York Liberty's Emma Meesseman era didn't get off to a good start.
Officially signed by New York on Friday, Meesseman was on the Liberty bench but did not partake in the ensuing 78-62 loss to the cellar-dwelling Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena.
Marina Mabrey flirted with a double-double to the tune of 18 points with 10 assists and eight rebounds each while Liberty legend Tina Charles had 15. Leila Lacan and Olivia Nelson-Ododa had matching 16-point on 6-of-8 box score for the Sun, (5-21), which previously dropped a 48-point decision in Brooklyn earlier this summer.
Sabrina Ionescu had 23 points in defeat for the Liberty, who once again played without the contributing triumvirate of Kennedy Burke, Nyara Sabally, and All-Star starter Breanna Stewart. In addition to her game-best scoring tally, Ionescu also led the team with seven rebounds and five assists. Jonquel Jones had 14 points, six boards, and three blocks behind Ionescu on the Liberty stat charts.
The Liberty leaped out to an early 14-5 lead but thing steadily went downhill from there, as any and all momentum was frequently interrupted by turnovers and inconsistency.
It was another dire setback for the Liberty (17-10), which has now dropped four in a row in with several major women sidelined. That excuse won't be embraced by New York, which lost 23 turnovers, their most in a single game since May 2022.
Despite losing eight alone in the opening period, the Liberty still had a 20-15 lead after the first 10, shooting 7-of-14 in the process.
Back-to-back threes from Ionescu and Rebekah Gardner seemed to restore seafoam sanity by pushing the lead to six just after the midway mark but a responding triple from another ex-New Yorker, Bria Hartley, tipped off a 17-4 run to close the first half, one that ended with the Sun up by seven.
Charles sank a buzzer-beater—one where the preceding inbound set up in macabrely appropriate fashion via New York turnover—to close things out and officially plant the idea of an upset into the home crowd's heads.
From there, the Liberty alternated between trading baskets and uniting with Connecticut in offensive dry spells. Once Connecticut got the lead up to nine by the end of the third, neither team scored for the first two-and-a-half minutes before Lacan and Ionescu exchanged baskets, the former's being a three. A three from Jones and a driving double for Stephanie Talbot narrow things back to seven but those proved to be the final seafoam points of the game.
Connecticut called timeout and kept New York off the board from there, denying the Liberty comeback efforts that made their prior three final deficits respectable. The Sun once again took advantage of the lack of Stewart's space-eating and length, pulling in 13 second chances compared to just seven for New York. Touted rookie Aneesah Morrow had six alone, part of the 13-point efforts acquired on the boards.
New York will have an instant chance at revenge on Sunday afternoon, as they'll wrap up a doubleheader against Connecticut at the casino/resort (1 p.m. ET, My9).
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.