Liberty Injury Report Finally Empty for Last Home Game
The New York Liberty are used to sellouts in the stands. Now, it'll finally have a packed house on its game day roster.
The injury report for the Liberty's final home game of the regular season, set for Tuesday night at Barclays Center (7 p.m. ET, Fox 5), is fully empty, giving New York a full contingent as its first-ever championship defense hits crunch time.
This is the first time that the Liberty's pregame injury report has been empty the July 23 game against the Indiana Fever. In that instance, Nyara Sabally was removed hours before tip-off. New York has not had a full squad (with the exception of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, whose contract is suspended for the 2025 season) take the floor since May 24, the third game of the season, when it also faced Indiana.
Sabally and fellow former Oregon Duck Sabrina Ionescu were the only holdovers on the injury list, each of them missing the entirety of the Liberty's recent three-game road trip that worked through Phoenix, Golden State, and Seattle. Injuries have to define the Liberty's championship defense to the point that only Marine Johannes has appeared in all 42 games to date this season and all but one of the Liberty's five regular starters has missed at had an absence of at least five games at some point this year.
Ionescu had missed five of the last six overall due to a foot/toe injury while Sabally has not appeared during the post-All-Star portion of the season due to knee issues. Sabally had dressed for each of the last two and partook in warm-ups but did not play in either showing, a process explained as an attempt to get her back into a game day feel and routine.
Ionescu and Sabally won't be able to move the Liberty (25-17) back up the playoff bracket, as New York is locked into the fifth seed in the tournament that tips off on Sunday. But their returns do give the Liberty a little something to play for as they prepare to defend their title in knockout fashion as they'll now have two research and development session to help get things right in time for the postseason trip. After the Mystics' visit, the Liberty wraps up the regular season on Thursday night in Chicago.
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.