Bad third quarter dooms Liberty in home loss to the Storm

The New York Liberty hosted the Seattle Storm in a showdown between two of the WNBA’s best. It was going great… until it wasn’t.

Photo by Ishika Samant/Getty Images

It’s hard to make things shake against elite teams. You have to be on time every possession and keep your mistakes to a minimum. If you do everything right, you give yourself a great chance to win. If you don’t, you’re begging for trouble. And for the New York Liberty, trouble came in the late afternoon.

The Liberty hosted the Seattle Storm at Barclays Center on Sunday afternoon. New York was looking to get some revenge after the Storm beat them last month in Seattle. The team got down to business early as they were able to keep up create great scoring opportunities. Sabrina Ionescu in particular was able to find pockets to make things happen

Sab led the way as she had one of her best first halves of the season. Sabrina had 20/5/4 in 17 first half minutes as she was able to bury five three pointers and keep the excellent Storm defense off-balance.

However, that disappeared after halftime. The Liberty scored a season low six points in the third quarter as the Storm took full advantage and never let go. Gabby Williams scored ten of her team high 16 points after intermission and was able to hunt for mismatches on each Seattle possession

“She’s one of the fastest players with the ball in her hands,” Sandy Brondello said prior to the game. “She has the ability to be a playmaker as well. She’s shooting with confidence. I know [her shooting percentages have] probably dipped the last few games there, but she usually guards the best player on the other team. Her versatility is really showing through, but I think she’s comfortable where she is and is playing at a really high level.”

The Storm are a switch heavy defense, and the Liberty were unable to execute and find good shots the deeper this game progressed.

“We gotta move the ball,” Brondello said in postgame. “That’s how you exploit switching. We don’t have big fives where we can just throw it in to them when [the defense is] swarming. The points in the paint, they had 44. We missed a lot of layups at the rim, but a lot of it was because of their length coming in. Their rotations were all on point, but to go 14-40, that’s obviously not a great percentage, so we got in there. But I think because we had less success, we stopped attacking closeouts. You have to attack these closeouts because they’re big and strong and you have to attack the mismatch where we can and then finish inside. I just think we got a little stagnant, didn’t move the ball as well, space the floor, or attack closeouts as well as we should have.”

To wit, one player that struggled today was Breanna Stewart. Stewie was off all game as she went an uncharacteristic 4-17 from the field and missed shots she normally makes in her sleep

“I think I just sucked today, Stewart said in postgame, “and I can say that and I have no problem with [saying] that. But I just gotta get my head on the rim, finishing some shots. Not getting to the free throw line at all is… kinda tough, so making the refs have to really call something [and] dictating and embracing the physicality levels.”

Final score: Seattle Storm 79, New York Liberty 70

The Liberty fell to 12-6 on the season. It’s their sixth loss in the past nine games as the combination of injuries and facing elite teams at full strength have proven to be a bit too much right now. As New York tried to rally in the second half, they had to do it without two of their players.

Health updates

In the third quarter, Isabelle Harrison left the game with a right knee injury after a collision under the basket. In postgame, Brondello didn’t have an update on Izzy’s status. Natasha Cloud sat out the entire fourth quarter after taking a bad hit. In post, Tash mentioned that she got banged up and will be getting treatment, but will be fine.

It’s been a rough stretch for the Liberty over the past few weeks as they’ve dealt with injuries to Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu, Nyara Sabally, and now Isabelle Harrison along with possibly Cloud as well. It’s never a good time to be injured, and with the schedule being as jam packed as it has been, has made their margin of error shrink considerably. To a person, the Liberty are confident that they’ll figure things out while the Finals MVP is out.

The road to CBA negotiations

Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

This October, the current WNBA CBA will end. Leading up to the end of the current agreement, players have communicated what they want to see in a new contract. So far, the league office has been non-responsive to the Players’ Association’s requests. In fact, they’ve been kind of insulting to be completely honest. At Storm practice on Saturday, WNBPA President and Storm star Nneka Ogwumike spoke about the early response from the league to the players’ proposals:

“It’s been made clear that this perception that the players don’t understand the business. [WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert] told me that to my face myself.”

Jesus. And at Liberty practice on Saturday, I asked Stewart about the league’s communication frequency with the PA, and she gave a pretty interesting answer

This CBA has the potential to change the landscape of the WNBA and women’s sports as we know it. The road to the new CBA is a long and arduous one, and we’ll keep you posted the more we learn.

It’s Star Time!

WNBA All-Stars were announced prior to the game, and an old friend is heading to Indianapolis!

Former Liberty forward and championship hero Kayla Thornton was announced as a reserve and will be making her All-Star debut. Prior to the start of the game, Sandy Brondello spoke about KT:

Thornton was named to the team, along with some surprising additions as well

Yay, KT! The big game will be on July 19th in Indianapolis, and it would be pretty cool if we got a mini Liberty reunion that night.

Next up

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The homestand continues as they have a primetime showdown against a long time rival. They host the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night at 8 PM on ESPN.

• Boxscore: Seattle Storm 79, New York Liberty 70 – WNBA
• Game Highlights: Seattle Storm 79, New York Liberty 70 (Video) – WNBA