Liberty lose wire-to-wire against the Dallas Wings

The New York Liberty embarrassed themselves in the first half of this game. Unfortunately for them, an amazing second half rally wasn’t enough to make their problems go away.

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Over the course of a long season, you’re bound to throw up a stinker. You’re not always gonna be at your best no matter how hard you try. The key is not letting days like that linger because that’s when trouble starts. And for the New York Liberty, they need to take that message to heart in the absolute WORST way.

Going into tonight’s game, the Liberty were without Breanna Stewart, Kennedy Burke, and Nyara Sabally. We’ll have more on them below but when you’re down three contributors like that, it makes winning a lot harder. It certainly doesn’t help when they allow buckets like this

Arike Ogunbowale had her best game of the season as she collected a double double in just the first half with 14 points and ten assists. She ended the night with a career high 14 assists to just one turnover. Possession after possession, the Wings found a hole in the Liberty defense and took complete advantage.

“No matter who we have out with injury,” Jonquel Jones said in postgame, “we have to make sure our energy and effort, regardless of what’s going on on the court, is consistent.”

The Liberty were down by as much as 30 points and were on track for their worst loss in three years. It was a truly disastrous effort and one that is not befitting a championship contender. However, the champs started to (finally) wake up. And as it always is when the team does well, it started with defense. New York held Dallas to just 28.1 percent shooting from the field and 21.4 percent from three point range after halftime as they started to dig into that deficit.

Stephanie Talbot in particular had her best game as a Liberty. Steph had 10 points (on a perfect 4-4 shooting), six rebounds, three blocks, three assists, and two steals in 24 minutes off the bench.

Her play tonight has earned her more minutes and we’ll see how Sandy Brondello manages the rotations with the forward position currently depleted.

However, when you’re down by as much as 30, you can’t afford to make mistakes as you try to pull off the impossible and there aren’t too many positives to write about.The Liberty made some bad turnovers down the stretch and extinguished any chance at pulling off the impossible. The Wings did just enough to avoid the most crushing loss in franchise history and gave the fans something to cheer for. For the Liberty, they leave Dallas with a whole lot of questions that need answering.

Final score: Dallas Wings 92, New York Liberty 82

Usually when the game ends, postgame starts about ten minutes after the final buzzer. However, it took the Liberty over a half hour before they finally addressed the media. It turns out the group held a team meeting to figure some things out. Brondello correctly noted that the team has been starting slowly in first quarters recently, and it’s caused them to expend a lot of energy just to fight back into games. Sabrina Ionescu added:

This group tends to bounce back after rough losses. They’ll have to figure it out in a hurry before things spiral out of control. If they don’t, they’ll make their championship journey a lot more complicated.

Health updates

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Breanna Stewart left Saturday’s game with a leg injury. We found out that she avoided significant injury, but she’ll be out for a bit. During pregame, Sandy Brondello didn’t have any update as it relates to a timeline for Stewart.

Kennedy Burke left Saturday’s game with cramping and the team held her out tonight to get some more rest. The expectation is she’ll be good to go on Wednesday night.

Nyara Sabally on the other hand will be out for a while. She’ll be out for two to three weeks for rest purposes as the team hopes to have her healthy for the stretch run and playoffs. There’s been plenty of discussion about the length of the season and the compressed nature of the record high 44 games, and it’s something Wings star Paige Bueckers talked about prior to the game

We run into this problem a lot in the NBA as leagues and networks want to fill as many hours of programming as possible without considering the actual people that are expected to provide the entertainment that occupies all of those hours. It’s a balance the league has to figure out in order to provide the best product possible and ensure the players can make it through the season healthy.

Next up

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It doesn’t get any easier from here. The Liberty head to the Twin Cities for a WNBA Finals rematch against the Minnesota Lynx. Tip off after 8 PM on Wednesday night.