Liberty Holds Team Meeting After Tough Loss
The centralized nature of road trips often allow teams to engage in activities centered around group bonding and chemistry-building but this one won't be appearing on the social media channels of the New York Liberty's finest.
New York held a team meeting after dropping a 92-82 decision to the Dallas Wings on Monday night, one that delayed their reps' arrival to the postgame podium. In-house business took precedence as a guest, as the Liberty (17-8) dropped their second game in three post-All-Star Weekend showings.
"I think it's just understanding that, when people are down, we need everyone to just do a little bit more and do be a little bit more intentional with how we start," Sabrina Ionescu said. "We have enough in that locker room and so I think that's something that we really talked about, is just continuing to stay together and weather the storm of this adversity that we're facing now, because it's going to pay off."
As the journey back to the WNBA Finals ramps up in earnest, the defending champion Liberty has dropped consecutive games to teams that are not stationed on the current WNBA playoff bracket. They previously fell by a 101-99 final on Saturday against the streaking Los Angeles Sparks, done in by a last-second toss-up from Rickea Jackson.
Dallas required no such heroics on Monday, leaping out to an early 16-2 lead and never looking back. New York might've been quick to call the final score deceiving: it managed to make a game out of it in the fourth quarter by trimming a 30-point deficit all the way down to six but the Liberty know they're far beyond treasuring moral victories at this point, even if they're ailing.
"It was a pretty obvious message, and it wasn't about scheming and anything," head coach Sandy Brondello said of the halftime and postgame conversations. "We just know we weren't we didn't play well. So what are we going to do about it? We can't be happy that we got it back to six."
"It's never on the coaching staff. We're the ones that go out and play," Ionescu said. "We're a team full of leaders that are always going to take accountability for the way that we come out. I think we were just kind of passive, waiting to see what they were going to do, instead of being able to be on our front foot and in attack mode. I think it's kind of a game we can use to learn about what happens when we come out that passive and just kind of rush, not being able to trust our offense and defense. We've just got to use it to propel us forward."
Monday's game was missing the services of All-Star standout and newfound facilitator Breanna Stewart as well as those of depth stars Kennedy Burke and Nyara Sabally, all of whom are dealing with injuries that necessitate some sort of sitting down.
The schedule maker also made sure that the Liberty snapped out of the All-Star break as well: the longest defense of Barclays Center this season ended with a back-to-back over the weekend and Monday's contest started a stretch of five games in eight days staged in four different cities.
Figurative crutches pepper the Liberty landscape. Monday's meeting, the Liberty hope, show that they refuse to lean on them.
"We're not competing at a high level, and we've got to get back to playing what we know we're capable of," Brondello said. "We've won the second half, but we can't have complacency. [Dallas was] on a back-to-back, so there's no excuse. So we've got to dig a little bit deeper."
"We have to take a little bit more pride in the defensive area. It doesn't matter that we have players out, everyone does. So we've just got to be more committed to that side of the ball and not allow their offense dictate our difference."
Since a 9-0 start, New York is an even 8-8 in a topsy-turvy stretch that has seen them deal with several absences beyond their control. The Liberty had gotten back on track following an early summer swoon, as the respective returns of Jones and Leonie Fiebich put them back in the win column for six portions of the aforementioned eight-game homestand.
It wasn't particularly hard, however, to find trouble in paradise: of the six wins, three required the erasure of double-figure deficits. The Liberty, for example, finally mastered the Phoenix Mercury for the first time this season but fell behind by as much as 13 thanks to another slow start that has plagued them in recent showings.
That all comes before the Liberty face the Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday night (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) in one of the most anticipated showings of the 2025 women's basketball calendar: that game is the first of four WNBA Finals rematches set to be staged between now and Aug. 19. Minnesota currently holds a four-game lead over the runner-up Liberty for the top seed on the current bracket, which sees teams two (New York) through five (Seattle) separated by only two games
The looming Lynx, however, played no role in the Liberty meeting's timing, as the players claimed it's more important than ever to look squarely in the mirror rather than on any road ahead.
"We got to focus on ourselves. We shouldn't be playing any differently because of who we're matched up with," Ionescu said. "You know what their record is, how talented they are. There's not really any excuse for the way we come out. We need to value every single game."
"[We] can't let any of these opportunities pass us by with the players that we have in this locker room. [Monday] is a game that we got to be able to talk about what we want to fix, and be able to go out there and do it, and it's us versus us. We have to be the best that we can be, and obviously we're going to get tested, and we know that. But any team can beat anyone in this league. I think we were able to see that tonight."
A common theme of this rollercoaster championship defense is that the Liberty know that they have plenty of opportunities to make things right. Their championship power has offered an even larger responsibility: New York has embraced the fun of a repeat title run in more ways than one, most prominently evidenced by the reported in-season addition of high-profile free agent Emma Meesseman.
The sacrifice, to that end, more or less kills off the idea of relishing moral victories and reduces the margin of error from slim to none. The Liberty hopes that Monday's meeting served as an early, if not vital, reminder of all that.
"No matter who we have that's out right now with injuries, we have to make sure our energy, our effort, regardless of what's going on with the core, is consistent," Monday's leading scorer Jonquel Jones said. "Right now is not consistent, and I think that's the biggest thing. Everything else we can keep talking about. But we've got to have that energy and that level of consistency."
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.