“These two-game series feel like a playoff series, and whether you win or lose, you’re both trying to guess, like, on the adjustments piece. But I do think the team that, usually, drops the first one is always going to end up trying to play harder and pick up the pressure and be more physical, and so we’re expecting some of that.”
That was Head Coach Chris DeMarco previewing the New York Liberty’s Wednesday night matchup with the Seattle Storm, their second in three days. On Monday night, the Liberty notched
a wire-to-wire victory over their youthful opponents, expecting a weighty counterpunch to follow.
It took a minute. The Libs raced out to a 21-6 lead, turning defense and long rebounds into easy runouts…
After serving up a bagel on Monday night, Rebecca Allen scored ten points in the first quarter alone: two threes and two transition layups. It was a welcome sight for the 33-year-old veteran, starting her seventh straight game. Allen entered with a a 41.8 true-shooting% on the season, playing hard but struggling to add much offensively. Still, New York is now 6-1 in her starts, and on Wednesday, Allen fired up the Barclays Center crowd she spent her Westchester days dreaming about.
Can she appreciate it in the moment? “I actually do. It’s funny, I was having this conversation after the last game, so it’s funny you even ask that because there’s some moments that you just look around and just go, ‘Wow! Like, this is pretty cool.’ It’s those pinch-me moments, which I think is really, really nice to be a part of.”
But if a frenzied crowd is a staple of modern Liberty basketball, so is blowing an early lead. The Storm handily won the second quarter, erasing the deficit completely by the early third. Sophomore sensation Dominique Malonga scored zero points in the first quarter, then 15 of her 31 in the second. With Han Xu and Jonquel Jones playing deep drop coverage, Malonga, Ezi Magbegor and Awa Fam were free to pick-and-pop-and-launch…
Seattle’s three stretchy bigs combined for 51 points on the night, including six 3-pointers.
“We had a big focus on protecting the paint,” said DeMarco. “Sometimes that’s what you give up. The four that they made in the first half were just super loud, right? It was just kind of like pick-and-pop, top of the key, so we didn’t want to overreact, but you know, we made an adjustment to make sure we got out to them.”
The Storm tied it at 50, but the Liberty responded with a 12-2 run on the backs of their stars. Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart combined to score 20 of New York’s 22 points in the third quarter, aided by a couple transition runouts…
Breanna Stewart, perhaps the greatest athlete a New York Liberty fan of any age will ever have the pleasure of rooting for, had another Stewie game. She played 33 minutes, relatively light by her standards, posting 28/8/2/0/1. Not that the box-score does her justice. New York played more aggressive coverages in the second half, unleashing her on Seattle’s ball-handlers as seen above or simply trusting her to guard two people at once on the back-line.
When Seattle made their final push of the game, it was Stewie who pushed the lead back to eight points, saving a broken possession by demanding the ball and cashing a step-back 19-footer over Dominique Malonga’s unending arms.
Said Stewie: “I think it’s always tough when you play a team twice in a row, and Seattle has such a young core that they’re never going to go away. They’re going to keep competing the entire 40 minutes, and I think that I wanted to just, kind of get a good look at the basket at times, and just knowing tendencies and where I can get to. You know, Sab and I put it on ourselves to make sure that we get good looks to end the game.”
Not that the other Liberty players were slouching. Jonquel Jones put up a robust 14/15/7/0/2 line, dominating the glass and winning her minutes by 18 points. Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart shared bench minutes on Wednesday night; thanks to Jones, it was no issue. Marine Fauthoux also chipped in six points, but they all felt important…
Pauline Astier added 11/3/5 without missing a field goal or free-throw, ensuring that all five Liberty starters hit double-digits. New York won by just six points against a team with six wins on the season, but there are no more free wins in the WNBA. The schedule is too packed, the talent is too widespread. A fairly comfortable two-game sweep over the Storm — for a team that’s now won six-of-seven — deserves a sigh of relief.
The New York Liberty are not as dominant (or healthy) as many had hoped for, and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is still getting DNPs amidst “We want Laney” chants at Barclays Center, but the team is hanging on. It’s nice to have star players, ain’t it?
Final Score: New York Liberty 92. Seattle Storm 86.
Brief Sabally, Fiebich update
Satou Sabally [head] missed her 14th straight game on Wednesday, while Leonie Fiebich missed her 11th straight [foot].
Pregame, Chris DeMarco said each were “progressing” with some light on-court work: “[Satou] is shooting, doing stuff off the dribble, starting to feel better. Leo, the same. It’s just either 45 minutes or an hour on the court, so they’re getting closer, but they haven’t picked it up to live yet. Like ones and twos and all that, that hasn’t happened.”
Next Up
A few days off, then A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces come to town for a Sunday matinee. Tip-off is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET.
