Liberty Excited By Homestand Despite Heartbreaking End
BROOKLYN—For at least six games, there was no place like home for the New York Liberty.
Despite a heartbreaking ending penned by Rickea Jackson and the Los Angeles Sparks, the Liberty's championship defense got back on the right track with a 6-2 homestand that sandwiched the recent All-Star break. Following the eight-game stretch, the Liberty (17-7) do not stay at home for any more than two straight games over the final 20 of the regular season.
"We've hung in there, and I think we've grown as a team," Brondello said of the stretch prior to dropping a 101-99, last-second decision to Los Angeles on Saturday. "We came in, we had things we needed to work on and we really focused on that in that homestand and we've made improvement."
Fueled by the last kudos for their historic 2024 championship run, the Liberty won their first nine games before hitting turbulence enforced by the lengthy departures of Leonie Fiebich and Jonquel Jones, dropping six-of-nine entering the stretch that began with pre-Independence Day fireworks against the same Sparks on July 3.
Carrying on a theme quite common in her tenure, Brondello was quick to note that Fiebich and Jones' respective returns from international duties and injury (one of several medically-induced absences for New York) helped right the ship, but there were no doubt several other factors at play.
Of note, the Liberty re-discovered that sharing was caring, as many lauded the rediscovered distribution at home: typical seafoam numbers returned to form on Atlantic Avenue, as New York dished out 22.6 assists per game at a rate of 72.7 percent of their field goals getting help, both second in the W in the span. During the gloom in June, those respective numbers were at 19.0 (8th in the league) and 65.2 (11th).
"We started playing to identity, moving the basketball and allowing the basketball to find energy, and just really trusting our teammates out there to make the right plays," the returned Jones said. "When we play that, we're a really hard team to stop."
"I feel like, when we share the ball again, we are just the best team shoving the ball play with a tenacity," Marine Johannes added. "Our transition offense is really good when we run, so we have to keep going."
To those points, the Liberty leads the WNBA in assists since Jones and Breanna Stewart joined forces with distribution expert Sabrina Ionescu in 2023, as they and Minnesota are the only teams to amass over 2,300 in that span. Stewart, whose lack of assistance was more than made up for in other ways, found a new power to the tune of over four assists per game over the homestand, keeping pace with Ionescu and fellow passing sensation Natasha Cloud.
Away from the floor, the Liberty called in reinforcements for another title run, landing longtime Brondello protege Stephanie Talbot while also landing a reported commitment from touted WNBA free agent Emma Meesseman (h/t Alexa Philippou, ESPN).
But the Liberty were quick to name 17,000 other new acquisitions, namely those in the seats and concourses of Barclays Center, their most important, immediate arrivals.
"I think coming home to the Barclays [Center], to our home crowd, being able to get some practices in in a crazy schedule was really good for us," new fan favorite Cloud added. "That's why we were able to put together such a good July. The next step is that we're trying to keep it at the right moments. This has still always been about Liberty basketball, it has never changed."
A four-game road trip now awaits the Liberty, one that begins on Monday night in Dallas (8 p.m. ET, ESPN). A working weekend in Connecticut awaits after the Liberty face the Minnesota Lynx in the first of four WNBA Finals rematches set to be staged between now and Aug. 19.
New York isn't fully out of the woods yet, as seafoam reps have always been quick to acknowledge that the return of Jones and home cooking weren't the be-all, end-all solutions to their issues. The Liberty continues to ward off the injury bug as well: Nyara Sabally has missed the last two games as New York plays it safe with her lower body while Breanna Stewart left Saturday's game early with a leg ailment that ended her night prematurely and left the lanes open far more often than was appropriate.
But, like so many triumphant stories before them, sometimes the journey's endgame is found where one started. That could be the case for the Liberty, who will seek to join the Sparks, Las Vegas Aces, and the defunct Houston Comets in the exclusive sisterhood of repeat WNBA champions.
"We want to put together 40 minutes of great basketball," Ionescu noted in Saturday's aftermath. "We want to do it now, but also we understand that we're still learning and figuring out what works and what doesn't, and we've got to make sure that we set the standard of knowing what it takes to put 40 minutes of basketball together by the time that October comes around."
"It's not really a trial and error, but understanding you want to peak at the right time and know what it takes to do that," Ionescu continued. "I have full trust in our team that by the time we really need to buckle down and put 40 minutes together, we have gone through this adversity and understand what it takes to do that."
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.