The New York Liberty, who have responded to a dismal 2-8 stretch by winning five of their past six games, made no moves prior to Sunday’s trade deadline, and that’s just fine with coach Chris DeMarco.
“We love the players in our building,” DeMarco said. “We’re confident we’re going to be playing our best basketball when it matters most.”
The Liberty (18-13) will complete a two-game set with the visiting Seattle Storm (6-26) on Wednesday night.
It’s a rematch of Monday’s game, which the Liberty won, 95-83. That marked New York’s first double-digit win since July 3.
Meanwhile, the Storm have lost nine straight games. That’s two losses short of the franchise-record 11-game skid Seattle suffered through earlier this season.
The Storm, who have the worst road record in the WNBA (2-15) as well as the worst overall record, did get a great performance on Monday from rookie Flau’jae Johnson, who scored a game-high 25 points.
Johnson said “it was lit” when asked about the environment at Monday’s game in New York, including a visit by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“The dude from ‘Ted Lasso’ (Liberty fan Jason Sudeikis) was there. Steve Kerr was there,” Johnson said. “It was a vibe. I wanted to win.”
It will probably be a similar “vibe” on Wednesday as the Liberty attempt to move up the league standings. Currently in seventh place, the Liberty are just 1 1/2 games out of fourth.
The 2024 league champions have been slowed this year by injuries. New York has used 13 different starting lineups.
In addition, the quartet of Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and Satou Sabally have played just six games together. Sabally has not played since June 23 due to concussion protocol.
Given those injuries, including to starting forward Leonie Fiebich, who is currently out due to a left foot issue, Stewart has been vital.
In July, she averaged 26.4 points — the highest average of any month in her career. She also shot 43.3% on 3-pointers in July.
Jones, Stewart and Ionescu were big on Monday, combining to score New York’s first 26 points. Overall, they combined to score 62.
Seattle will again counter with its “Big Three” of Johnson, Natisha Hiedeman and Dominique Malonga, who combined to score 59 points on Monday.
–Field Level Media
