Sabrina Ionescu, Liberty 'Excited' After Loss

A rare loss has the New York Liberty energized rather than downtrodden.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

BROOKLYN-The number 25 occupies the New York Liberty's win column. In the eyes of Breanna Stewart, it might as well be zero.

"I feel like I've been saying we haven't done anything," Liberty star Breanna Stewart said. "We need to finish this regular season strong and just make sure we leave it all out on the court."

New York (25-5) is entering the fourth quarter of the WNBA regular season on a somewhat dour note, as a de facto buzzer-beater at the end of the third has somewhat smudged the playoff picture: New York is still well in control of its own destiny atop the WNBA leaderboard, but their grip on the top seed loosened ever so slightly after a 72-64 defeat at the hands of the Connecticut Sun at Barclays Center on Saturday.

With the win, Connecticut (22-7) became the second team after the Liberty to clinch its 2024 playoff berth and moved to within 2.5 games of the WNBA lead.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

Saturday's loss ended an eight-game winning streak and served as the Liberty's first defeat in Brooklyn in just over three months. The Liberty scored 25 points in the opening period but failed to get past 14 in any of the latter three. New York also lost 19 turnovers, which created over a quarter of the Connecticut tallies, most of which were earned by lasting Liberty nemesis Marina Mabrey, who had 15 off the bench to lead the Sun.

It might be just what the Liberty needed, so claims point guard Sabrina Ionescu.

Ionescu struggled in her return from a neck injury, needing 13 tries from the field to get to 12 points after missing the prior two games. That wasn't enough to deter any lingering optimism in the postgame, as she hinted that the end of one euphoric streak only opens the book on a potentially thrilling challenge.

"I think we're disappointed in how we came out and how we executed on both sides of the ball, but it's not the end of the world," Ionescu said. "Sometimes you need moments like this to kind of get you back up, and understand what you really need to work on and improve on as a team, and not be satisfied with where you're at."

The Liberty won't have long to wait for a chance to further bury the memories of Saturday as a three-game western swing opens on Monday in Phoenix (10 p.m. ET, WNYW). Ionescu was enthused over the "fun" of the Liberty pulling themselves out of this small rut but capped her comments on a solemn promise.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

"It's how we respond to this loss that's going to fuel us moving forward, and, you know, I'm excited," she continued. "It's not going to be easy to get back to the playoffs, to get back to the Finals, to try to accomplish what our goals are. (But) that's kind of the fun in this, is being able to figure out, through adversity, what you're made of and how you're going to come back and be better than you were before."

"I promise you we're not going to have a game like (Saturday) again."

The road trip, which also features stops in Los Angeles and Seattle, is an instant opportunity for the Liberty to fulfill that promise. Ionescu's teammates offered their own thoughts on what it would mean to put such a strategy into action.

"I hope that it gets us kind of locked back in," Stewart said. "You're going to lose games. But what are we going to do to control the next thing in the next day and the next game? ... We don't want this to be easy. (Stuff) gets even harder from here, because teams are really trying to kind of do a playoff push and get to a great spot. So we need to embrace that a little bit and what better way to do it than play Phoenix on the road?"

"The way we lost, we kind of gave them that. Everything was on us," reserve Kayla Thornton added. "It's okay, you know we're going to learn from it. We're going to bounce back from it, like Sabrina said, and move forward. "

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