Liberty's Depth Passes Big Test in Return to Brooklyn

Amidst some major depth transactions in the WNBA, the New York Liberty showed their own versatility in Tuesday's return to Barclays Center.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

BROOKLYN-The more things change, the more they remain the same. For the time being, it's working out for the New York Liberty.

Amidst several moves made on the WNBA's transactional ledgers, the Liberty continued the Association's longest active winning streak while standing pat: three New Yorkers posted a double-double in their seventh consecutive victory, a 94-74 prevailing over the reloaded Dallas Wings

Tuesday's win was earned without the services of several metropolitan headliners: Sabrina Ionescu was a late scratch due to neck tightness while Betnijah Laney-Hamilton her seventh in a row with a lingering knee issue. One of the starting subs, Leonie Fiebich, left after 12 minutes due to a rib issue.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

Fortunately for most of the 11,455 gathered at Barclays Center (which included New York Knicks stars Mikal Bridges, Miles McBride, and Tyler Kolek), the leftover metropolitan All-Star contingent each earned a double-double, a phenomenon that occurred on only 23 prior occasions in WNBA history and only once on the Liberty ledgers. Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones each paired 12 rebounds with 26 and 23 points respectively while Courtney Vandersloot had 15 while assisting on 11 other successful sinks.

"I'm really proud of this team," head coach Sandy Brondello said. "We had to grind it out. It wasn't always pretty, but we still put up 94 points, and we kept a really dangerous team to 74."

As it stands, New York is the class of the Associaton, holding the top seed on the current playoff bracket by 3.5 games over second-place Connecticut. The final quarter of the regular season is approaching and some of the chasers have turned to available veterans for help in removing the Liberty and Las Vegas Aces from their perches in the WNBA Finals.

The Liberty's latest victory came hours after the Seattle Storm announced the WNBA return of French Olympic heroine Gabby Williams. Shortly before the Olympic break, the Connecticut Sun traded for Liberty nemesis Marina Mabrey, who has averaged 18 points and over six assists/rebounds each in four showdowns as a member of the Chicago Sky. Mabrey and the Sun visit Brooklyn on Saturday after entertaining a big crowd at TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics earlier this week.

But a common theme in the aftermath of Tuesday's win was lauding and recognizing the depth the Liberty has had the whole time: the efforts of Stewart and Jones were perhaps expected, but it was perhaps a revolutionary return to form for Vandersloot, who notched her first 10-10 game since last September. With Ionescu sitting, Vandersloot played a role in 10 of the first 14 Liberty points despite taking only two shots (assisting on six points and creating a new scoring possession with a rebound).

" I think it's something that we've shown all season," Vandersloot said. "I think that we are continuing to peak at the right time. People are playing really well. We can have three different players every night (reach double figures), which makes this team special. We're going to continue to build off that."

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

Elsewhere, the Liberty enjoyed 25 bench points: Kennedy Burke had 13 on 5-of-7 shooting while taking over for the fallen Fiebich while Ivana Dojkic had a crowd-pleasing triple that sent Jacy Sheldon to the hardwood, much to the delight of the Barclays Center crowd assembled.

All that and more didn't even account for some of the Liberty's more expected and surprising developments: Kayla Thornton (now plus-65 in 10 starts) manned Laney-Hamilton's spot in the starting five, Nyara Sabally continued to hold her own behind Jones, and the whole thing was capped off by Jaylin Sherrod's first WNBA points.

"To win championships, you need to rely on your bench in our very compact season that we have," Brondello said. "We have a great big three, but we have great players around it that really just buy in and come in and do what they do, and they do it well. ... They're all important as we move forward. I think our depth, we said it had to be better this year, and it has, and that's what we're going to need as we move forward."

The next chance for the Liberty to show off their depth lands on Thursday when the Wings come back to Atlantic Avenue for a rematch (7 p.m. ET, WWOR).

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