Liberty Overcome Opening Nightmare to Drop Dream
BROOKLYN-The New York Liberty overcame a nightmarish to start to dismantle the Atlanta Dream on Sunday afternoon, getting back in the win column with an 81-75 victory at Barclays Center.
Breanna Stewart led the way with a 22-point, 12-rebound double-double while Betnijah Laney-Hamilton had 18 points in her first appearance on Barclays' playing surface since June 9.
New York (16-3) continued its regular season affairs on Atlantic Avenue after dropping the Commissioner's Cup Final to the Minnesota Lynx at UBS Arena on Tuesday night. The Liberty not only maintained the top seed on the WNBA leaderboard but also stretched its regular season winning streak to four games, the longest active regular season output next to that of Las Vegas.
Improving to 3-0 against Atlanta this season was hardly dreamy: New York fell behind by as much as 16 in the early going, as they were held to a season-worst 13 points in the opening period. The deficit was sliced to five by halftime and New York took a permanent lead in the third to render a 16-point, 12-rebound performance from former franchise star Tina Charles null.
Well-known for scorching starts, the Liberty showed some rust during the opening period, the side effect of nearly a week off. The time off allowed the Liberty to replenish its roster (only Nyara Sabally sat out of Sunday's game) but head coach Sandy Brondello mentioned that several players were under the weather in her postgame comments.
The time off and apparent locker room bug thus rendered a slow start unsurprising to the bearers of seafoam, who ended the period on a 19-10 run after falling behind by the aforementioned 16. They would open the third on a 13-4 tally over its first half and kept the advantage despite several attempts at chipping by Atlanta.
"It was nice to have those days off, but you don't play games," Stewart noted. "That first quarter wasn't a surprise. After that, it was like now we want to get ourselves out of this hole. We wanted to cut it to under 10 before halftime. We did that and we knew that the second half would be ready to go."
The second period proved to be a busy one for Courtney Vandersloot, who likewise reintroduced herself to Brooklyn after a bereavement absence. In her first regular season showing since June 4, Vandersloot had seven points and assists over 21 minutes, four of the latter category coming in the second.
"It was great to have Slooty back on the court. I thought she had a really solid game," Brondello said. "Seven points, seven assists, no turnovers, but we know what she can do defensively, just her activity. She seemed to be everywhere, she was getting hands on balls as well. I didn't even think she was too tired, that was my only concern there. It was certainly great to have her back there."
"We were more destructive defensively," Stewart noted. "It didn't matter who was matched up. Sometimes Sloot ended up on Tina or Cheyenne Parker and she would fight her way out of it. That led to us getting out in transition offensively, driving downhill. I think that was big for us."
Laney-Hamilton and Stewart each put up 11 in the second half while Stewart pulled in eight rebounds in the latter 20. Rookie Lenie Fiebich put on a one-woman show in the final frame, pairing nine points with three steals and two assists as the Liberty earned their finishing touches. With those efforts, Fiebich was directly responsible for 15 of the Liberty's last 21 points.
Two Liberty headliners made history on Sunday via personal landmarks: Stewart reached 5,000 points for her career, the fastest to reach that plateau in WNBA history (242 games). Despite a tough night from the field (3-of-17), Sabrina Ionescu also became the seventh player in Liberty history amass 2,000 points in seafoam and also sank at least one three-pointer for the 44th consecutive game, tying Kelsey Plum and Diana Taurasi for the third-longest such streak in the history of the W.
Packed with momentum after an upset victory in Connecticut on Friday, the Rhyne Howard-less Dream were nonetheless doomed to their eighth loss in the past 10 despite the best efforts of the Queens native Charles, who also stands as the all-time leading scorer in Liberty history. Allisha Gray led all Sunday scorers with 24 while Cheyenne Parker-Tyus had 12 off the bench. New York will have a chance to go for the season sweep of Atlanta in its regular season finale on Sept. 19.
In the meantime, the Liberty are back in action at Barclays on Tuesday night as a Commissioner's Cup Final rematch against the Minnesota Lynx awaits (7 p.m. ET, WNYW).
GEOFF MAGLIOCCHETTI
Editor-In-Chief at All Knicks