The New York Liberty entered Sunday’s rematch with the Connecticut Sun having dropped four straight. It’s an unprecedented cold-streak in their Superteam Era, not just judging by raw wins and losses. Jonquel Jones finally returned from ankle injuries that kept her out a month in total, only for Breanna Stewart to go down with a bone bruise. Nyara Sabally remains snake-bitten, and now Kennedy Burke has joined her.
They are tired. They are injured. They are struggling.
Their loss to the last-place Connecticut Sun on Friday was disappointing, but not shocking. The Sun are young, feisty, and improving. An awful -15.7 net rating on the season belies the fact they’re a respectable -2.5 since July started. They’ve been healthy, have added promising rookie Leïla Lacan, and are playing with newfound confidence. Doesn’t sound too much like the Liberty, does it?
But there are no excuses at this level, and definitely not when the Sun are 5-21. So the Liberty needed a win — real bad — in the rematch at Mohegan on Sunday afternoon, and they’d be getting some help this time, in the form of recent addition Emma Meesseman.
Meesseman started in her team debut on Sunday, and went slightly over the allotted 15-minute limit that Sandy Brondello wanted to impose. But once Meesseman took the floor, giving the Liberty another high-feel big body that they so desperately needed, it was hard to take her off it...
The Belgian import explained her seamless fit postgame: “Basketball can be really easy, if you just read off each other. One of my mottos is to keep it simple ... if it works, it works. If you see someone open and they cut, give them the ball and you get a layup. It’s easy.”
Meesseman finished with 11/2/3 in her debut, scoring all her points in the second half. It was the performance the Liberty needed, and yet, it was completely overshadowed by another monstrous Sabrina Ionescu performance.
She scored 36 points with 11 boards and four assists, and remarkably, she made just one three. Ionescu shot 13-of-19 from two, continuing to show the true star development she’s made over the past couple seasons...
She scored 16 points in the first quarter and hardly slowed down after that, mixing in pull-up jumpers with floaters, drives all the way to the rim, and pick-and-roll passing.
Said Ionescu: “I mean, if you asked me if I scored 36 points on one made three, I’d probably say that’s not really what I had planned. But I think it’s just the ability to play at my own pace, be confident in what works, and every game just looks different.”
More succinctly, Ionescu did everything, over 37 minutes. It was a true MVP performance, beyond just bucket-getting. She showed up with the fire in her eyes, annoying the hell out of Marina Mabrey on defense while getting into it with Bria Hartley after a hard foul. Sometimes, she just needed to yell at the referees. But you knew if the Liberty played as pissed off as Ionescu seemed to be, regardless of the shots going in, they’d be fine.
And they were.
Jonquel Jones put up 21/9/4 in her old home arena, ripping off a run of buckets in the second quarter to put some distance between the Libs and a hard-fighting Connecticut team. She played high-low with Meesseman, pick-and-roll with Ionescu, and otherwise fit in where she could...
In a rock-fight where the teams combined to make just nine threes, Jones’ presence inside, as it often is, was too much for the Sun to overcome. After the three big names, Rebekah Gardner was the next leading Liberty scorer with six points, but played 22 minutes to Steph Talbot’s nine, perhaps (hopefully?) signaling a permanent change in the rotation. Natasha Cloud shot just 1-of-7 for three points, but forced a handful of Connecticut’s turnovers with her ball pressure.
The dam finally broke for the Liberty at the start of the fourth quarter, where another burst from Jones handed them a 15-point lead. Though some silly turnovers at game’s end made the score closer than it really was, the Liberty walked out of Mohegan with a well-earned, desperately-needed victory.
“I think we showed how resilient we are, how we can stay together, because that’s — everyone faces adversity. It’s about what we’re going to do with it,” said Sandy Brondello postgame.
And that resiliency, at least on Sunday, all started with Sabrina Ionescu. The 2020 #1 overall draft pick put the jersey, then the franchise on her back and carried them to a win. It’s what true stars do, but it’s regular to them.
“I had seven turnovers, so that sucks.” — Sabrina Ionescu
**Final Score: New York Liberty 87, Connecticut Sun 78**
**Next Up**
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The New York Liberty briefly return home, looking to avenge a blowout loss at the hands of Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings. Tip-off is scheduled for Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. ET.