If there was any doubt before, it should be clear now. With a win over the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday afternoon, the New York Liberty have established themselves as the best team in the WNBA right now.
They are 12-2, have won eight in a row, and just beat the two-time-defending champions 90-82 on the road.
The Connecticut Sun (12-1) are the lone team ahead of them in the standings, but that one loss came at the Liberty’s hands in Uncasville. In that game, New York was down their starting point guard Courtney Vandersloot and a key bench player in Nyara Sabally.
Vandersloot and Sabally were also absent for the Liberty’s win in Vegas, but a 14-0 third quarter run from New York left little doubt anyway.
As usual, the trio of Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones led the way, with Jones securing a 34-point career high on 12-of-16 shooting and a 4-of-5 effort from three. Stewart had her ninth double-double of the season (14 points, 12 rebounds) and Ionescu had her first (15 points,12 assists).
While the Liberty were shorthanded, it should also be noted that the Aces were as well. Chelsea Gray has not played since last year’s WNBA Finals but is inching closer to a return. A lot of Vegas’s problems offensively can go away once they get their point guard back.
From here, the Liberty travel to Phoenix where they’ll face a Mercury team on Tuesday that gave them all they could handle at Barclays Center on May 29. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve learned about the Liberty — against the Aces and overall through 14 games.
Jonquel Jones is a real MVP candidate
We’ve had enough games already where we’ve said “well, if she puts a few more of those together, Jones will be in the MVP conversation.” She’s there. She’s in the conversation. Against the Aces, she showed she could do it all.
“She's really impacting in so many areas for us and it's great,” head coach Sandy Brondello said after the game. “That’s what we need. She’s so coachable”
She got the Liberty on the board in the first quarter with a three after the Aces had scored the first six points. She hit two more triples before the quarter was up.
In the fourth, Vegas hit a flurry of threes that were ultimately meaningless as Jones scored at every level — from the line, in the paint, in the mid-range, and from long distance — all in the final four minutes.
“I’m just playing the game. If I’m open, I’m shooting,” Jones shared. “I think it shows that we're playing the right way and it definitely does feel good.”
It was her third straight 20-plus-point game and she’s shooting 71% from the field in that time.
Leonie Fiebich is instrumental for the Liberty off the bench
When Vandersloot had to step away from the team temporarily for personal reasons and Sabally injured her back, it opened two spots in the Liberty rotation. Leonie Fiebich has handled her minutes increase as well as anybody, and we’re at the point now where, even at full strength, she will need to be part of the rotation.
She scored eight on Sunday and is now six for her last 12 from three. And keep in mind that she could do more than just score. In the Liberty’s 78-61 win over the Dream on June 6, she finished with eight points, nine rebounds, and five assists — not bad for a rookie.
After the Liberty’s win over the Mystics last week, Brondello called her and the bench’s contribution “necessary.”
“They brought great energy and Ivana [Dojkic] too, and she hadn't had many opportunities,” Brondello said on Sunday. “We talked about our depth being one of our strengths and it's certainly showing even though we've got two important players down.”
The Liberty's early 3-point shooting woes were an aberration
There was never any real concerns that the Liberty's cold streak would last all season. New York has too many good shooters. The Liberty's 12-of-26 effort from deep on Sunday brought them up to 33.6% on the season. Still not great, but a steady climb up from where they were even 10 days ago.
New York is better than 41% from three in their past three games and before that was just 32% overall for the season.
“I think we're getting better and better at making threes now, and getting really wide-open ones and JJ is just expanding it out,” Brondello added.
Stewart and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton still haven’t found their shots yet. But to be fair, Stewart has been playing at a near MVP level anyway, and Laney-Hamilton has been the team’s most valuable defender.
It hasn’t mattered much, however, because of the boost they’ve gotten from Fiebich off the bench (36%) and Jones shooting nearly 40% on a career-best 4.3 attempts per game.
In the first few weeks of the season, the Liberty looked disjointed at times, even in their wins. That has changed. The on-court chemistry that started to appear at the end of last season has returned and the players can feel it.
“That's the beautiful thing about chemistry,” Jones said. “When you start to get to that level that, it really does feel seamless.”
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