What’s a season without a little adversity?
The New York Liberty would prefer not to know, but over the last ten days, they’ve lost Jonquel Jones to a four-to-six-week ankle injury, Leonie Fiebich to EuroBasket, and three of four games. Perhaps I jinxed them.
Still, provided Jones can make a full recovery by August, their championship aspirations remain unchanged. In sea foam speak, adversity can mean that they’re no longer favored to set the WNBA single-season wins record.
But it’s enough to question where the 10-3 Liberty will be by then. Will catching the 12-1 Minnesota Lynx for home-court advantage throughout the playoffs be out of the question? Will they even be a lock to host a first-round playoff series? After this mini-skid, the Atlanta Dream, Phoenix Mercury, and Seattle Storm are breathing down their neck, and the Indiana Fever and Las Vegas Aces are lurking in the shadows.
Worry! Doubt! Don’t worry, this is what most fans of professional sports teams have to go through. To stay grounded, let’s look at some more pressing questions facing the New York Liberty.
Winning the point of attack
Most half-court possessions start with a battle on the perimeter. Example: If a ball-handler can blow by their defender and collapse the defense, the offense has won the point of attack. If the defense can prevent the ball from getting into the paint, and thus, their shell from breaking, they’ve stood their ground at the POA.
Over the Liberty’s recent skid, they’ve lost this battle — on both ends — more often.
In giving up 102 points in their loss to the Fever, then 68 through three quarters against Atlanta (before staging a fourth-quarter comeback), the biggest culprit was their ball-screen defense. On a team full of veterans, the Liberty are empowered to play a variety of ball-screen coverages, often communicating what they want to do on the fly.
Obviously, there are player-specific game-plans — you don’t want to go under a screen vs. Caitlin Clark — but, as first-year assistant coach Sonia Raman described it: “This is a really, really high IQ team. So I think — credit to the coaching staff for leaning into that, letting them play on feel. That’s where, as I said before, the communication has to be there, so we just have to all be on the same page.”
Recently, the communication has faltered, and both the Fever and Dream exposed it...
Liberty have been filleted by ball-screen actions until the 4Q of their victory over ATL
vs. the Fever, they weren't at the level and/or botching switches, either way unable to apply ball-pressure.
ATL killed them, largely, by getting out of screens quickly and collapsing NYL: pic.twitter.com/0olfPx9fvv
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 19, 2025
Fiebich is likely New York’s best POA defender, and Jones’ ability to play a variety of ball-screen coverages while protecting the rim has landed her four All-Defense selections. Their absences were guaranteed to hit New York where it hurt.
But New York’s recent defensive slide — 10th in the WNBA over their last four games — is not all personnel-based. On this possession vs. the Mercury, before Jones suffered her ankle injury, a break at the POA leads to an open layup for Alyssa Thomas...
Said Raman: “That’s the area for growth, is really trying to get to a high level with our communication, where we’re we don’t have that mistake, you know? And you’re not going to play mistake-free, right, but that’s what you get with the feel. You get all the good stuff, and sometimes you get those.”
Kennedy Burke may have been able to save one of “those” with a timely rotation in the above clip, but loses sight of Thomas rolling to the rim.
Though Burke is still shooting well over 50% from three, she’s had a rough couple games of late, particularly on D. She hasn’t been a force at the rim, as in the above clip, and she’s been involved in a few POA breakdowns herself, leading Rebekah Gardner to get the start in Sunday’s loss to Seattle.
Burke, though, could be an answer to some of New York’s problems on the other end of the court.
Over their 9-0 start to the season, the Liberty had the best offense in the league by miles, and a 1.70 assist:turnover ratio. The last four games are too small a sample to draw any definitive conclusions, but their offensive rating has dropped by ten points, posting a paltry 1.15 assist:turnover ratio.
This starts, as you might expect, at the POA. Before missing the Seattle game with a neck issue, Sabrina Ionescu had her worst game of the season against the Phoenix Mercury, shooting 3-of-16 with five turnovers.
Phoenix pressured her relentlessly, trapping nearly every screen she came off of, and the results weren’t pretty...
If Ionescu had played against Seattle, there is little doubt she would have seen the same sort of defense. The Storm did deploy it against Natasha Cloud, Marine Johannès, and whoever else handled the ball on Sunday night, and largely had success doing so...
NYL struggling to punish aggressive defenses lately (especially w/ no Jonquel), denial of Marine and trapping Tash kills this possession: pic.twitter.com/MzDWi4a2nQ
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 23, 2025
It’s a team-wide issue. Ionescu, when she returns, needs to be quicker to give the ball up and initiate 4-on-3 offense. Her teammates need to flash to the ball and make the right reads when they attack...
right here NYL does pass out of the trap, SEA's rotations are a bit off (both Skylar/Gabby fly toward Stewie), but it still ends in a turnover
not their best passing stretch rn: pic.twitter.com/We7gsz7TxE
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 23, 2025
To this end, perhaps Burke is a natural screening partner for Ionescu, able to slip out into 4-on-3 situations and either take the ball to the hole or make the right passing read. She is a very talented driver and ball-handler for her size, and this could be a way to tap into those skills.
Defenses will continue to attack Ionescu & Co. at the POA until the Liberty show improvements here. With their next two games coming against aggressive-minded Golden State Valkyries and Phoenix Mercury, they’ll be tested immediately.
Natasha Cloud, and off-ball movement
Jonquel Jones’ absence illuminates how much work she really does for this Liberty team. Defenses are afraid to switch ball-screens because she’ll bury any smaller opponent in the post, but her ability to shoot, pass, and drive from the perimeter also makes the whole 5-out offense hum.
She is a true mismatch nightmare, either beating people over the head for layups or dragging opposing centers away from the rim to open up driving lanes. Without her on the floor, it’s worth questioning how the Liberty will create easy twos.
Two potential answers spring to mind, and on this play, they overlap...
Natasha Cloud drives to the paint, finding a cutting Rebekah Gardner for two. Gardner has impressed with her ability to cut off the ball, and perhaps that’s why she saw a season-high 21 minutes against Seattle — it creates open layups.
So does an aggressive Cloud, who has too often faded into the background since her explosive opening week in New York.But it’s not for a lack of skill; the ten-year veteran is New York’s most capable passer on the move. Sometimes Cloud seems unsure of herself, reluctant to drive because it may not be the right time or place, but she has the passing ability to make lemonade out of lemons.
A couple of these drives come on pick-and-roll, another off the catch, but all of them end with a great decision, occasionally aided by a teammate cutting at the last second...
In the first clip, Cloud’s defender goes under the screen, but instead of settling for a pull-up jumper, she keeps her foot on the gas against her former team. This is the battle that Courtney Vandersloot often fought in her final games in New York, but a battle that Cloud is better equipped to win.
Her teammates will need to help her by finding open space, but an aggressive Natasha Cloud is the best Natasha Cloud.
Shoutout Jaylyn Sherrod
What else is there to say? The 2024 undrafted free agent is cultivating a real role on this Liberty team. Whenever Head Coach Sandy Brondello is pissed off, she puts Sherrod in the game, and Sherrod brings everybody’s energy up. It’s fantastic...
She’s hit double-digit minutes in half of the Liberty’s last six games and, to be frank, has shown more than 2024 #11 overall pick Marquesha Davis. If New York could only keep one...
But that’s a worry for another day. For now, Sherrod is making a career for herself, and it’s not just based on try-harding. She has real basketball skills and dynamite in her legs, and you can see how she may become an effective POA defender and downhill driver.
The skills have to catch up to the talent, but as Sherrod continues to snag real minutes, the possibility increases. She put up 8/3/3 and two steals in 14 minutes against Seattle, and even tossed in this and-1 over Nneka Ogwumike...
Sherrod is just 5’7”, and is just 4-of-15 from three in her career, which feels like an appropriate representation of her outside shooting for now. But I don’t know man. She has something.
Jaylyn Sherrod’s next chance to log minutes, and the New York Liberty’s next chance to notch a win and breathe just a small sigh of relief, comes on Wednesday night. They’ll take on the Golden State Valkyries, with tip-off scheduled for 10:00 p.m. ET.