That Opening Night blowout of the Connecticut Sun was not a sign of things to come. Not yet, anyway.
The New York Liberty are still WNBA championship favorites, their full roster is still deep as hell, they have four months to put it all together — but they did enter Sunday afternoon’s nationally televised tilt against the Dallas Wings with a 3-2 record, fresh off a split with the expansion Portland Fire and, even after a week off, a sludgy loss to the Golden State Valkyries.
When asked for the autopsy,
Chris DeMarco said, “It’s a possession game, and I would say you can’t get shots up if you turn the ball over 15 times. So, we got to find a way to execute better offensively, but also create more turnovers defensively.”
It’s not that the Liberty have played terrible defense to start the season, but pesky? Certainly not…
Sabrina Ionescu made her season debut on Sunday, returning from an ankle injury. Satou Sabally looked quite rusty in her debut on Thursday, but she played her second straight game, again slotting into the starting lineup in place of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, out due to a personal reason. The former Oregon Ducks aren’t known as lockdown defenders, but New York has been craving any semblance of depth. Overseas arrival Raquel Carrera was technically available for this one, but didn’t play.
DeMarco ran a nine-woman rotation in the first half (with Rebecca Allen riding the pine), taking a one-point lead into the break. Sabrina Ionescu hit a couple early bombs, including a signature pull-up in transition, and each one not only blew the roof off Barclays but added to the feeling that the Liberty were on the precipice of a game-breaking run. That the Wings, at the end of a winding road trip, were ready to be vanquished…
Not in 2026. Azzi Fudd started the second half and scored 17 of her 24 in the third, including five 3-pointers, though the Liberty matched her. As in, they scored 17 points as a team in the third. New York’s soft perimeter defense, which only stole the ball four times and allowed Dallas to shoot 15-of-35 from deep, will deservedly take the brunt of the criticism.
But after missing a few layups to begin the third quarter, they fell flat and never recovered. Sabrina Ionescu missed her last seven shots to finish 4-of-15, posting 11/5/7, Breanna Stewart shot 7-of-18 without a trip to the line, and for the second straight game, Marine Johannès posted a bagel.
Jonquel Jones took just three shots in the first half before picking it up after the break (14/5/7), while Satou Sabally led the team with 20 points on 6-of-14 shooting, but no individual box-score could wipe away the collective malaise. It wasn’t necessarily the possession battle; each team turned it over 11 times and the Liberty grabbed more o-boards. But New York only stole the ball four times, getting nothing in transition and stressing their already over-burdened half-court offense (not to mention Dallas’ lack of misses)…
Postgame, DeMarco didn’t want to focus on the lack of steals, and therefore transition opportunities: “To me that’s not as important right now as handling another team’s runs and making sure we can fight and get back in the game. And you know, finding the right combinations is going to be big, too, going forward.”
Breanna Stewart had a straightforward explanation: “I don’t think we’re, like, particularly being like the aggressors…that’s how you get out in transition and really kind of make a run.”
Forcing four live-ball turnovers isn’t going to cut it, but any stat-sheet indicator — from the possession battle to rebounding to 3-point shooting — can’t capture what we all saw out there on Sunday afternoon. In the second half, the Liberty didn’t bring it, and though Leonie Fiebich and (a hopefully springy) Betnijah Laney-Hamilton should help this team, there’s no excusing the lack of verve. Sometimes it manifests in Ionescu hitting 30-footers in transition, or Jonquel Jones throwing no-look dimes or Stewie living at the rim. Without that “aggression,” as a couple players called it, the Liberty will merely tread water.
Just look at the other side. Buoyed by Fudd and Awak Kuier starting the second half over Odyssey Sims and Alanna Smith, their tremendous spirit papered over their flaws. Arike Ogunbowale shot a hideous 5-of-20 on Sunday, but rarely disrupted Dallas’ offense to force one up. Instead, her teammates thrived. Conversely, each Ionescu miss felt like a dagger in the heart of a potential comeback.
The Liberty cut the deficit to single-digits in the fourth quarter, but never made much more progress than that. Paige Bueckers didn’t sit until midway through the third, then returned to put the finishing touches on a great Dallas win, matching Fudd’s 24 points with loud support from a nearly bipartisan Barclays Center crowd.
“Hopefully, the most fixable issue is stop letting teams score like 90 points again,” said Breanna Stewart. “That’d be great. I think that we just need to make it harder, you know?”
The good news? The Liberty are just 3-3 with 38 games left, at the beginning of a jam-packed homestand. Opportunities keep-a-coming.
Final Score: Dallas Wings 91, New York Liberty 76
