NY Liberty vs. LA Sparks preview: New York looks to extend its winning streak

Los Angeles Sparks v Washington Mystics — Photo by Stephen Goslings/NBAE via Getty Images

The New York Liberty conclude their home schedule for July and look to extend their winning streak to six.

Last outing of the month. The New York Liberty took on the Phoenix Mercury last night and ran away with after halftime as they won their fifth consecutive game.

The opponent tonight is still looking to chart its new path forward. The Los Angeles Sparks began their road trip with a night time affair against the Connecticut Sun. The Sun put up a good fight, but the Sparks were too much to handle as they pushed their winning streak to four.

Where to follow the game

My9 on TV. Liberty Live and Fox Local on streaming. League Pass for the out of towners. Tip after 7 PM.

Injuries

No Nyara Sabally. As of now no one else is listed on the injury report so everyone’s good to go

Cameron Brink has been out as she continues to recover from her 2024 ACL tear. She’s been upgraded to doubtful so her road to recovery has advanced to another level.

The game

The Liberty won the first meeting earlier this month.

Kelsey Plum has taken well to her maiden California voyage. Plum is third in the WNBA in scoring at 20.1 points per game on .410/.373/.912 shooting splits. She’s historically been a tremendous finisher at the rim, but is only shooting 52.3 percent inside of three feet per Basketball Reference. For the Sparks to sneak in the postseason, they’re going to need KP to have more success in the painted area.

Plum will match up against her good friend and rival, Sabrina Ionescu. It’s an incredibly basic statement, but damn she is really, really good. As she continues to get lead ball handler reps, she’s been able to strike the perfect mix of creating shots for herself and finding great looks for her teammates.

As Leonie Fiebich told us last night, Jonquel Jones is a force anywhere she is on the court. JJ is getting more and more comfortable now that she’s back on the court. Her combination of deep shooting, physicality on the inside, and timing on both sides of the ball makes her impossible to deal with. The Sparks will (likely) be without their future defensive anchor in Brink, so Azura Stevens will have the assignment tonight. Stevens is having the best season of her career and had a real good case to be named to the All-Star team this season. Either way, her excellence has been appreciated by Sparks fans and her play has allowed the team to let Brink take as much time as she needs to rehab from last season’s surgery.

Player to watch: Rickea Jackson

It hasn’t been the sophomore season for the former University of Tennessee standout. She missed some time earlier in the year due to personal reasons, but recently returned and is playing good ball. Like a lot of players, she’s at her best when she’s playing aggressively, and recently explained why

“I feel like that’s when I’m playing my best basketball, when I’m being aggressive, from the jump, not overthinking and just taking what the defense gives me, but doing it with pace. And again, I feel like when we’re flying around on both ends of the floor, pace and moving the ball as we do, we’re going to play good.”

For Jackson, the task will be maintaining her aggressiveness within the flow of Lynne Roberts’ offense. She’s taking more threes this season, but has only made 27.6 percent of them. At this stage of her career, you can experiment and push her to try new things. The results may not be there today, but it will be in due time.

Breanna Stewart is looking to bounce back from an off shooting night. Stewie shot 3-12 from the field and has now seen her three point shooting fall under 20 percent on the season. It hasn’t hurt her because she still does everything else at a high level, but when things get super tight in the playoffs, the Liberty will need Stewart to find something from deep. In the meantime, she’ll look to wreak havoc on defense tonight against a Sparks team that’s trying to make its way into the top eight of the standings.