Liberty's Foul Shot Discrepancy Hits Historic Levels
Foul shooting has been foul shooting for the New York Liberty.
Opportunities for the Liberty to earn landmark victories in the fourth quarter of their first postseason championship defense have gone by the wayside: late leads slipped through the Liberty's grip in the latter acts of a three-pronged road trip, which ended with an 86-80 defeat to the Minnesota Lynx in the third of four WNBA Finals rematches on Saturday.
"It's just another opportunity for us to go out there and get a W," Jonquel Jones said of the ongoing Finals rematch series with the Lynx, which wraps up on Tuesday in Brooklyn. "Obviously this is a team that we played in the championship last year, a team that has been having a good season, and so obviously we want to go out there and play really good basketball against them. We're kind of in a in a mini-series with them, so we understand the importance of these wins and the importance of just going out there and just getting better, because the playoffs are right there."
New York's last two losses have carried a foul burden: in Wednesday's defeat in Las Vegas, the Liberty were forced to watch the hosting Aces shoot 18 free throws over the final 10 minutes, which saw them on a wrong end of a 22-14 margin. On Saturday in Minneapolis, the Lynx got to shoot 33 singles while the Liberty themselves tried only eight.
Such a metropolitan discrepancy, the second-widest in the WNBA this season (Connecticut was minus-28 in a June loss to Washington), literally hadn't been seen in years: it was the second-worst margin in single-game franchise history (minus-28 vs. Indiana in June 2002) and the minus-37 over the last two games in their second-worst in any couple (minus-39 in 1999).
"It was 33-8 What do you reckon? Are we not driving hard enough?" head coach Sandy Brondello rhetorically asked after Saturday's game.
Officials have been recurring characters in the epic recent saga between the Liberty and Lynx: a good number of Lynx fans in attendance at Target Center on Saturday came clad in merchandise claiming officials cost them the deciding game of last fall's WNBA Finals were decided by unfair Liberty trips to the foul line.
The Liberty was equally peeved, as a chance to win the series in four games was interrupted by a 20-9 free throw disadvantage in the penultimate showing. Brondello speaking out against those calls was enough to get her a fine from the league heading into the finale.
True to form, the Liberty (21-13) shouldered blame for their lack of charity stripe visits, expressing further discontent over a 11-2 Minnesota run that closed out the game rather than some overly physical, whistle-less plays that sent Brooklynites to the ground. While at full strength, New York has been able to overcome one-sided whistles: prior to Saturday's game, it was a perfect 4-0 in games where the opponent had at least 14 more free throw attempts over the last three seasons. The rest of the league was a combined 20-49 in that same span.
Instead, the Liberty offered a promise to control its controllables as it tries to overcome a late-summer swoon in time for the second championship run.
"For us, it's about just controlling the things that we know will help us win this game, and continuing to understand that we've got to just continue to get better every single game," Ionescu said. "I think we've done that, and obviously understand that we're going back home, and I think that's going to help us continuing to use that energy. It's been a long month on the road, and for us to get back home in front of our crowd, we owe them from the last game that we played, the Lynx at home [is huge]. Hopefully, we can get a great crowd, kind of giving us some good energy, and continue to grow and build."
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.