Great at times, average at times: Keys to Liberty's chances for a WNBA title

NEW YORK -- Jonquel Jones hit the Griddy. In the final seconds of the New York Liberty's 91-76 win over the Chicago Sky on Thursday, the party was on in Brooklyn. Kennedy Burke jumped on Leonie Fiebich's back. Breanna Stewart's 2-year-old daughter Ruby raced onto the floor and stood alongside Ellie the Elephant as she watched her mom and Sabrina Ionescu do a postgame interview at half court. A portion of the 17,758 fans in attendance -- a Liberty record for Barclays Center -- stuck around to observe and offer their team a final round of applause.

These scenes have been typical in Brooklyn this summer, where the Liberty are 11-1 and have won nine straight. But Thursday's game may have been especially rewarding. In back-to-back days, the Liberty knocked off the second-place Connecticut Sun on the road and then the gritty Chicago Sky, further solidifying their spot at the top of the league standings, where they'll look to stay with two games remaining before the Olympic break.

The Liberty's 19-4 record is their best start in franchise history, and it bodes well for their quest to return to the WNBA Finals. Twelve of the 13 teams in WNBA history to start a season with that record made the Finals that year, with 10 winning the championship.

ESPN BET gives the Liberty the second-best odds to win the 2024 title (Liberty +190, Aces +160), while ESPN Analytics reflects a similarly close race between the 2023 finalists, projecting a 36.9% chance for the Liberty to win it all, just behind the Aces (39.4%).

There has been a lot to celebrate in Brooklyn on the individual level, too. Stewart, the reigning MVP, is headed to her third Olympics, while Ionescu, who's having an all-WNBA first-team-caliber season, will play in her first. Jones' dominance has shades of her 2021 MVP season, resulting in her fifth All-Star nod. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton made a strong case for joining her teammates in Phoenix as she continues to cement herself as one of the premier two-way wings in the league.

Still, clinching to the franchise's first championship remains paramount, particularly after last year's newly formed Liberty superteam fell to the Aces in the Finals.

With 17 regular-season games remaining, including Saturday's showdown in Chicago against the Sky (1 p.m. ET, ABC) -- and Tuesday's against the Sun at home -- here are some of the X factors that could determine whether the Liberty make history, or fall short once more.

New York wasn't a bad defensive team last season; its defensive rating (99.4 points per 100 possessions) ranked third in the league. But its perimeter defense was a weak spot, which the Las Vegas Aces' guards exposed in the Finals: The Aces would drop 99 and 104 points on 54.7% and 52.9% shooting, respectively, in Games 1 and 2.

The Liberty signed Fiebich, Burke and Ivana Dojkic in the offseason to address the issue. With those additions, plus more minutes for Kayla Thornton, New York flexes more versatility, length and physical ability on the wing than before. Take Wednesday, when it held Connecticut to just five points in the first 6:44 of the second quarter whenever Fiebich, Burke and, for parts of it, Thornton were on the floor. In the decisive fourth period against the Sky the next day, coach Sandy Brondello leaned on the lineup of Jones, Stewart, Ionescu, Fiebich and Thornton to put the game away.

Advanced metrics say the Liberty have improved defensively with a 96.1 defensive rating in 2024, though they still rank behind those of the Minnesota Lynx, Sun and Seattle Storm.

In Brondello's eyes, sometimes the Liberty are great defensively, other times they are "very average," she said Wednesday.

An example of the great: holding the Sun to 68 points on 35.8% shooting Wednesday. An example of the average: allowing the Phoenix Mercury to score 99 points with a 55.1% clip a few weeks ago.

Brondello and her team acknowledge defense as their primary focus this season. Stronger team chemistry can translate on the defensive end too, but it's also an area the coach often says comes down to "commitment."

"I think we've got the tools to be a great defensive team," Brondello said Thursday. "It's the consistency, and we've shown it a lot this year: When we lock in, we can lock teams down, too. Not always for 40 minutes, but we know how to raise the level. And it's just the communication and the trust that they have, I think, that's pretty special."

Upcoming matchups against the Aces, the top offense in the league, on Aug. 17 and Sept. 8 will be good tests for just how much the Liberty have grown on that end of the floor.

Jones needed time last year to recover from a preseason foot injury. But by the postseason, she'd emerged as the team's most consistent player.

That's the version of Jones we're seeing this year: Her scoring (15.7 points per game) and rebounding (9.2 per game) numbers are her best since her MVP campaign, while her assists (3.3 per game) are a career high. Most remarkably, her true shooting percentage sits at an astounding 68.4% and reflects her versatility both inside and outside the paint. The 6-foot-6 center is taking 4.1 3s per game and making 41.5% of them.



Brondello said Wednesday the Liberty are at their best when Jones is playing at a high level. Following her 18-point, 13-rebound double-double Thursday, the Liberty are 16-1 this season when she scores 10 or more points, and 3-4 when she scores 9 or fewer -- with two of those losses coming to the Lynx, including in the Commissioner's Cup final. On her career, Jones' teams are 47-4 when she scores 20-plus points, the best record in WNBA history (minimum 20 games).

Another stark difference: In the Liberty's wins this year, she averages 17.2 PPG, 9.6 RPG and 60% FG. Contrast this with the Liberty's losses, when she averages just 8.8 PPG, 7.0 RPG and 45% FG.

Having to guard Jones and Stewart, both the epitome of positionless posts, is a nightmarish proposition for opponents. But the more Stewart (career-low 23.7% shooting from 3) finds the back of the net to go alongside Jones' stellar play, the more dangerous that tandem will become.

The past three New York squads have attempted more 3-pointers per game than any other team in league history (27.6 in 2022, 27.7 in 2021, 29.7 in 2023). This year's squad has one-upped those figures is even better, with 29.5 3-point attempts per game.

And yet Brondello stressed, after the loss to the Fever, that the team does not want to live and die by the 3-ball and must continue to find ways to play inside-out. In the Saturday loss, Indiana clogged up the paint (Jones took only five shots) and dared New York to shoot 3s -- and though many were open shots, the Liberty made only 10.

On Wednesday, with the Sun defense taking away the 3-point line, New York managed just 13 attempts from the arc but found ways to get downhill or otherwise outscore Connecticut in the paint 40-26.

Scoring in multiple ways -- and making teams pay for taking away one element of their offense -- will make the Liberty much more difficult to beat, especially in a series. Especially with a player like Ionescu, an elite 3-point shooter who has made major strides in her ability to get downhill and worked on developing a floater -- as evidenced by her dagger shot against the Sun on Wednesday.

"I think that's just the evolution of this team," she said. "It's not being one-dimensional and knowing we're going to go in every single day and do the same thing, but be able to read what defenses are giving us and attack in different ways."

New York's depth was not a strength last year, particularly once postseason play arrived. Just three reserves averaged at least 9.0 minutes per game last season, and only Marine Johannes (11.5) and Thornton (10.1) averaged at least that much off the bench in the playoffs. This year, Thornton, Fiebich, Burke, Dojkic and Nyara Sabally are all passing that mark.

There's room, too, for them to grow within New York's system. Brondello thinks they can expand Fiebich's role on offense. (Fiebich's season-high 13 points against the Sky prove it's possible.) Sabally, who returned to the court Thursday for the first time since May 31 after dealing with a back injury, proved to be an impact player earlier this year and figures to be a key part of the Liberty's depth moving forward. With Laney-Hamilton (knee) sidelined again on Thursday, Thornton was indispensable on both ends (16 points including four 3s, plus 4 steals).

It will be fascinating to see which rotations Brondello gravitates toward when the stakes are raised as well as in close games -- especially with so many defensive-minded players on the bench.

This past week showed the variance of Liberty basketball. Against the Sun, the Liberty executed when it mattered most, holding the No. 2 team in the standings scoreless in the final 2:11 and improving to 13-0 when leading at the half this season. New York is the only team still unbeaten in such situations.

The performance came five days after the loss to the Fever, who had rallied to win behind a 28-16 fourth quarter. Brondello attributed complacency for Saturday's performance, calling it a "wake-up call."

"Playing 40 minutes of tough gritty basketball is really kind of what we hang our hat on, on both sides of the floor, making sure we're playing in the right way," Ionescu said Wednesday. "That last game was a little uncharacteristic. ... We weren't as locked in as we should have been."

There were self-inflicted issues of a different nature last month in the Commissioner's Cup championship game loss to the Lynx. Ionescu thought they were "our own worst enemy" with unforced turnovers and tried to reinvent the wheel on offense. Brondello pointed to mental fatigue as the cause of some defensive breakdowns. (The Liberty cleaned things up a week later to beat the Lynx by nine points.)

With now a year-plus of playing together under their belt, the Liberty have seen their chemistry grow. But in a season full of parity and with the Aces chomping at the bit for a third consecutive title, New York must put the pieces together and come through with urgency and execution, toughness and fortitude, to get over the franchise's proverbial hump and finally win that WNBA championship.



Phoenix Mercury at Connecticut Sun
Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, ABC

The Sun are now 0-2 against the Liberty following Wednesday's Camp Day loss at home. They have fared much better against the Mercury, whom they've defeated twice already this season. Phoenix has dealt with a host of injury issues, and its preferred starting five has appeared in just nine of 22 games. Diana Taurasi is also out for her fourth game of the past five with a lower leg injury.



Indiana Fever at Minnesota Lynx
Sunday, 4 p.m. ET, ESPN

We saw the highs and lows of the Fever in the space of five days: They knocked off first-place New York on Saturday, then on Wednesday were upset by the Mystics, who've been in the bottom quarter of the standings all season. Indiana can't afford to dwell on the loss, though. It faces Atlanta on Friday -- a game that could have playoff berth implications -- before taking on the Lynx on Sunday.