NY Liberty rally from down 17 points to beat Atlanta Dream

The New York Liberty fell behind by as much as 17 points to the Atlanta Dream. Then, they woke up in a major way.

“You’re trying to be perfect in an imperfect game.” – Natasha Cloud

In Tuesday’s game preview, Jordan and I discussed the rebounding matchup. Entering tonight’s game, the Atlanta Dream were third best in the WNBA in rebounding while the New York Liberty were third WORST in the league. To offset that, Sandy Brondello changed things up.

The Liberty went with the triple big lineup and started Nyara Sabally alongside Breanna Stewart and the returning Jonquel Jones. It worked as far as keeping the Dream off the boards. The Liberty wound up winning the rebounding battle 37-31. However, the usually excellent Liberty defense sprung a few leaks throughout the game.

It started with their three point defense. Atlanta is a team that leads the W in three point attempts and they were true to form tonight with 28 attempts. What hurt New York was that they allowed so many of those Dream threes to be wide open

Te-Hina Paopao in particular fed off those Liberty errors as she scored a career high 16 points, all in the first half. The Liberty were out of sorts, making mistakes, and were in route to their first home loss since Game One of the 2024 WNBA Finals.

Then, they figured it out.

It started on the defensive end for this group. Breanna Stewart slid over to the small forward position and had the matchup against Rhyne Howard. Howard made her first two shots after halftime, but wound up going 1-9 the rest of the way.

After halftime, the Liberty forced ten turnovers as they started to chip away. They cut down on Atlanta’s open three point attempts and made every possession a slog for the Dream.

“It was our energy, honestly,” Nyara Sabally said in postgame. “It was because we know that this team shoots a lot of threes. They’ve been shooting a lot of threes over the past two games. So we knew they were going to come in and shoot threes. And it really is just a matter of getting down and not letting them shoot threes because we know that’s what they want to do. And like you said, they were wide open too.

So that’s really just 100 percent on us and we need to just NOT let them get open threes, so I feel like that was the change.”

They got the defense, and then they got timely buckets along the way. Natasha Cloud has been in a bit of a slump in the past few games, but she’s continued to work through it. With the Liberty down three late in the fourth quarter, she got Paopao on her and went to work

“The great thing is I’m on a team with a lot of weapons, a lot of versatility,” Cloud said in postgame. “So even when my offense isn’t really there right now, I have teammates that are going to pick me up and be there for me. But they still have the belief in me down the stretch to put me in good situations. And so for me, it’s just trusting my preparation.

Statistically, the numbers are going to drop at some point, but just keeping that same mindset of being aggressive. And yeah, I was happy to just be able to add to it.”

Our very own Lucas Kaplan broke the game down and analyzed what the Liberty did well here

Final score: New York Liberty 86, Atlanta Dream 81

Sabrina finds the blend

Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images

The three pointers tend to lead the headlines for Sabrina Ionescu, but her ability to get downhill might be the most important part of her game. Those downhill drives often lead to great scoring opportunities in the paint or for kickout corner threes. It’s something she spoke to media about at practice on June 16 and we saw in action tonight.

Ionescu scored a game high 34 points on .600/.500/.750 shooting splits and was able to make things happen at all three levels of the court.

“Sab’s a scorer,” Breanna Stewart said in postgame. “I think she’s continued to develop the ways in which she scored. You know, especially in her rookie year, it’s like, you know she’s a shooter, you know she wants to go left these type of things. And now she gives people different looks. Whether it’s getting to the basket, o[ffensive] boards, finishes [at the rim], threes, mid ranges.

The ability to score in multiple ways makes it really hard for people to guard it. And just happy with the way that she continues to develop her game.”

That development in her game has also come on the defensive end. Early in her career, Ionescu could be hunted on defense as teams saw her as the weak link of New York’s defense. Now, she’s a solid defender that does well in her assignments, has active hands, and always finds herself in the right positions. It’s a testament to her work ethic that she’s taken what was a negative and improved on it in a major way.

The Liberty won’t be back in the Commissioner’s Cup Finals

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

If the Liberty wanted to get to their third straight Commissioner’s Cup championship game, they were going to need the Connecticut Sun to upset the Indiana Fever. They did NOT do that, but they did get the Fever upset…

My, my, my!

Tash speaks

Basketball is fun, but the world around us is depressing, scary, and worse. It weighs on all of us and we all try our best to make sense of what’s going on around us. Natasha Cloud is someone that has been a leader on the court and in the community as she advocates for marginalized communities and righteous causes. In the postgame scrum, Kenny Saint-Vil of NY Liberty FAN TV asked Tash how she was doing basketball aside, and here’s what she had to say:

Salute.

Next up

Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The Liberty play their last home game of the month on Thursday night against the new look Phoenix Mercury. Tip off at the ‘clays after 7 PM.