On August 17 of final 12 months, following a decisive win over the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces, I wrote the New York Liberty had “the juice.” That they had been proficient sufficient from the second Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot arrived in New York previous to the 2023 season, but it surely was clear they now had the requisite “it” issue, the juice, to return out the opposite aspect of the WNBA playoffs a champion. The advertising workforce thought so, too:
Right here’s a brand new one: promotional juices for the Liberty gamers as we enter awards szn pic.twitter.com/B5j1pgcjaK
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) September 8, 2024
Two months later, the Liberty raised their inaugural WNBA Finals Championship Trophy inside Barclays Heart.
One 12 months later, they don’t appear poised to drag off a repeat. Succesful? Positive. However after a 9-0 begin to the season, the Liberty have gone 14-15, getting into their Thursday evening matchup in opposition to the Washington Mystics because the No. 5 seed. If the common season ended proper now, they’d open the playoffs on the highway, a situation completely unthinkable till — after accidents, errors, dangerous bounces, lackadaisical play and extra accidents — it all of the sudden was.
Alas, the common season isn’t over. Stewart has returned from a month-long damage absence and now, the Liberty have six video games to get it proper, to not solely enhance their playoff seeding however to search out the most effective model of themselves. Briefly: 2025 doesn’t really feel like their 12 months. It’s not over but, although.
Do The Liberty Have One other Gear?
No different query issues if the reply to this one isn’t a powerful “sure.”
Previous to returning to the Liberty lineup Monday in opposition to the Connecticut Solar, Stewart revealed the highest precedence for the Liberty, cliché as it could sound.
“I believe the very first thing that we will do is proceed to focus and lock in on effort performs. You recognize, 50/50 balls, unfastened balls,” she mentioned. “These are issues which can be controllable. Whether or not the ball goes within the basket or not, you possibly can’t all the time management, however ensuring that we’re on a string, we all know that we’re able to combat.”
This isn’t the message you need to hear from the chief of a contending workforce so near the postseason, however it’s the proper one. In 2024, the Liberty led the league in defensive rebounding share; in 2025 they’re second-worst. They’ve additionally slipped from the fifth-best offensive rebounding workforce to the very worst. If rebounding is an effort stat, New York simply isn’t attempting arduous sufficient.
“Our inconsistency at instances is mind-boggling,” head coach Sandy Brondello mentioned after a dispiriting August 21 loss to the Chicago Sky by which they surrendered 20 second-chance factors.
However is it?
Each rotation participant has missed time with both damage or abroad commitments, together with your entire massive rotation. Jones performed simply 9 video games earlier than the All-Star Break whereas Stewart missed practically the entire month of August. Nyara Sabally’s knees have been a no-go for a lot of the season and the shocking Isabelle Harrison has been in concussion protocol for the workforce’s final seven video games. Midseason arrival (and pseudo-savior) Emma Meesseman was requested what the Liberty actually wanted from her after her workforce debut August 3 and he or she half-jokingly replied “a physique.”
Worse but, New York is within the midst of the thickest post-All-Star schedule of any WNBA workforce with 23 video games. The Liberty are combating for playoff place however on many nights, there’s not sufficient fuel within the tank. Comprehensible or not, it’s unacceptable for a workforce attempting to repeat as champions.
On the subject of rebounding, that doesn’t (simply) imply they visibly hand over on box-outs or let their opponents beat them down the ground. Extra typically, errors compound. Whether or not these errors are attributable to fatigue doesn’t change the result. On this instructive possession, one snafu on the perimeter results in Angel Reese securing nice place down low and from there, it’s over:
No one is hot-dogging right here. It’s not a lazy possession. The subsequent “gear” for the Liberty gained’t simply present up within the type of elbows bloodied by heroic dives for unfastened balls, however fewer defensive errors just like the above.
How A lot Can Breanna Stewart Repair?
One other rationalization for New York’s dreadful rebounding season: Stewart and Jones, because of damage, have shared the courtroom for simply 224 minutes this season, down from practically 1,000 final season. The Liberty deploy a wide range of ball-screen coverages and can typically name them out on the fly, which incorporates switching with both one of many bigs. When each share the ground, rebounding behind the change turns into a a lot much less arduous job:
effectively, here is Stewie
JJ change onto Marina however Stewie is there to get the board, runs the ground (holy Saniya block), Liberty rating pic.twitter.com/EiY8dCc6rX
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) August 25, 2025
Together with the July 26 contest Stewart received injured in, the Liberty went 5-9 in her absence. It was the nadir of a attempting season for the defending champions and although a measly two-point win over a 9-27 Connecticut Solar workforce in her return doesn’t sign perfection, she does make the Liberty complete once more. However does she save them?
“I imply, that’s not gonna occur and that’s not practical, you understand?,” Sabrina Ionescu mentioned. “I believe it’s understanding, like, how we might help her, how she might help us and the way we perceive after we’re all collectively doing our half, this factor goes.”
Stewart’s half, in fact, is huge. Ask a Liberty participant or coach what the workforce missed most in her absence and also you’ll deservedly get some incredulous model of “every part.”
Her protection is unimpeachable; there is no such thing as a doubt she’ll be flying across the backline in assist or mauling opposing guards on the point-of-attack as soon as the playoffs start.
that is the way it’s alleged to look
(cease bringing Stewie into the motion, and NOT close to the sideline) pic.twitter.com/ttGeOe5Gp2— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) September 22, 2024
And but, the Liberty could have missed her much more on the opposite finish. Stewart is taking pictures simply 20 % from three this season, persevering with a worrying pattern that’s developed since her bricky 2023 WNBA playoffs. Each time she raises up from deep, the Liberty trustworthy will likely be holding their breath, and they need to be, particularly with Natasha Cloud now within the backcourt, an iffy shooter groups are prepared to assist off.
However none of her teammates, snipers as they’re, can replicate her capacity to place strain on the rim in any state of affairs. New York’s free-flowing, five-out offense means the ball will get from side-to-side and roles are fairly fungible. One participant could set a ball-screen and roll to the rim, flowing out to the other nook in the event that they don’t get the go. Just a few seconds later, and so they’re careening across the arc, receiving a dribble handoff from the wing.
Add in Stewart’s chopping and he or she is a continuing menace to make one thing occur, as she showcased in her return Monday:
amongst one million different issues, Stewie having the ability to apply downhill power at any second is one thing no different Lib can replicate: pic.twitter.com/BwuaRN2sBq
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) August 28, 2025
Ionescu has missed her star teammate enormously.
“[Her return] provides me the chance to form of be capable to play on and off-ball,” Ionescu siad. “Set her up in any method that I can, assist her get downhill. However we play so effectively collectively, whether or not we, like, invert the pick-and-roll to me setting it for her or her for me. I believe it simply continues to carry a lot to this offense as a result of it’s arduous to protect. Like, you don’t actually know, there’s no predictability.”
Perhaps that’s precisely what the Liberty and Ionescu want.
One Massive Lineup Query
The 2025 Liberty usually are not only a rerun of their championship marketing campaign. After Betnijah Laney-Hamilton suffered a season-canceling knee damage throughout the offseason, basic supervisor Jonathan Kolb acquired the aforementioned Cloud. There have been apparent professionals and cons. The 2024 Liberty benched small, pass-first level guard Courtney Vandersloot in favor of the 6-foot-4 Leonie Fiebich, transferring Ionescu to full-time lead ball-handler duties and changing into a much bigger, extra switchable workforce within the course of.
Ionescu’s plate was all of the sudden full. Her enhancements as a ball-handler meant she may handle it and the Liberty protection reaped the advantages. Cloud is a high-quality defender however not the sharpshooting wing Laney-Hamilton is. New York’s identification as soon as once more shifted however maybe Ionescu would profit with some simpler seems to be.
Although looking for definitive cause-and-effect is difficult, given so many accidents, Ionescu’s life has decidedly not been simpler in 2025. Per PBP Stats, her shot high quality is its lowest since a three-game rookie season in 2020; simply 61.6 % of her photographs have come from three or on the rim. Ionescu is true New York’s finest offense is unpredictable however the way in which opponents defend her with Cloud on the courtroom isn’t:
NYL nonetheless hasn’t completely discovered Natasha Cloud’s off-ball offense when Sab has the ball pic.twitter.com/i3RmIMX0YS
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) August 28, 2025
That is the place the 6-foot-4 Meesseman enters the image. The midseason signee, who has spent most of her time since profitable the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP destroying numerous ranges of European competitors, can shoot threes on low quantity and possesses world-class contact and imaginative and prescient. Can the Liberty conceivably run an enormous, barely slow-footed lineup with Ionescu, Fiebich, Stewart, Jones and Meesseman?
“We labored somewhat bit on the large lineup right now,” Brondello mentioned at Wednesday’s apply. “We’ve simply received to be taught by the minutes that we’ll have in these subsequent video games.”
In one thing of a take a look at drive, that massive lineup performed simply two minutes throughout Stewart’s return in opposition to Connecticut. Although Brondello known as it “clunky,” it didn’t discourage her.
“The large lineup wasn’t that good for us however will probably be,” she mentioned. “We simply want repetition, you understand, you want expertise to be taught.”
It’s a raffle the workforce has to make however a raffle nonetheless. Meesseman has the fingers and measurement to offer average versatility in ball-screen coverages however is far slower than Cloud — and Laney-Hamilton, for that matter. Scientific offenses just like the Minnesota Lynx can benefit from her by way of off-ball actions like this:
Minnesota’s offense simply so crisp, intentional. Emma Meesseman straight up switching onto Courtney is ok, if not supreme, however then having to defend splits vs. Kayla McBride…
the query of her protection on this matchup is fascinating: pic.twitter.com/DF4fOJAl81
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) August 19, 2025
These sorts of miscues have already been killing the Liberty these days. Why make Meesseman defend in house extra typically? Wouldn’t that negate the dimensions and rebounding benefit she theoretically brings over Cloud? All are legitimate questions however the upside of getting Meesseman on the ground subsequent to different nice gamers is just too tantalizing to disregard:
Liberty closing it out with Sab-Emma pick-and-roll
(very good of CT to shut with Tina and never ONO) pic.twitter.com/abbASqrbo6
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) August 26, 2025
I can not take credit score for noticing the parallel between this 12 months’s Liberty workforce and the 2014 Miami Warmth, which dragged themselves to the NBA Finals searching for a three-peat, regardless of apparent exhaustion, a few of which was age-related. After all, New York additionally has a rival trying to avenge a Finals loss from the earlier 12 months: the 30-7, top-seeded Lynx.
The Liberty usually are not useless but, although they sometimes look it. They’ve been injured, they’ve been attempting to combine new gamers and so they’ve been taking part in a grueling schedule. I’m not the grand arbiter of acceptable effort degree for skilled athletes, however to me, this effectively explains their subpar play during the last two months.
However in some way, they should discover the juice. In any other case, Stewart’s return will likely be however a blip on their option to an early playoff exit and a large lineup with three of this technology’s most expert bigs will likely be a enjoyable piece of trivia, nothing extra. The Liberty have the instruments to save lots of their season but it surely has to start out now.
