In a year where the WNBA is more competitive than ever, the New York Liberty are off to their best start in franchise history at 9-2 through 11 games.

The scary part? Head coach Sandy Brondello says the team has yet to play its best basketball.

The Liberty's 78-61 road win over the Atlanta Dream on Thursday night certainly didn’t come close to an offensive masterclass and it didn’t remotely matter. New York shot only 39% from the field, but Atlanta shot 34%. The Liberty made only 29% of their threes, but the Dream made 14%.

“I think we continue to grow on [defense], grinding out wins,” Brondello said. “We’re on the same page, where we need to help….and our versatility, I think that’s helping us.”

New York may have needed a game like this one. It didn’t jump out to a big lead, didn’t have a quarter-long swoon, and left little doubt in the second half. It was a methodical win in the middle of a stretch of five road games out of six, and four games in six days.

They’re also shorthanded. Nyara Sabally missed her third game in a row with a back injury and Courtney Vandersloot was out due to a personal matter.

For the second game in a row, Breanna Stewart led the way. She put up 25 points and had 10 rebounds, but her and Sabrina Ionescu combined to shoot just 1-8 from three. That made their transition game — a point of emphasis when things weren’t going well earlier in the season — even more important.

“I think that we know that that's one area that we excel,” Stewart said. “Especially when we can rebound, we get out and run, it's hard for other teams to match up in transition.”

Leonie Fiebich takes her turn in the Liberty spotlight

After starting the season with minimal contributions from their bench, the Liberty have had to turn to fresh faces over the past week. First against the Mystics, it was Kayla Thornton, who started for Vandersloot and scored 20 points. Kennedy Burke had 10 against the Fever two night ago. This time, Leonie Fiebich had eight points, nine rebounds, and five assists, putting her in elite company among WNBA rookies.

“I'm starting to feel more comfortable with everybody on the court out there, more comfortable in the system offensively and defensively,” she said.

The 22 minutes Fiebich played on Thursday were the most of her young career, though she’s played double-digit minutes in five of her last six games.

“We have a great starting five, but we've got a really reliable bench too,” Brondello said. “As [Fiebich] said, they're getting more and more comfortable and that's part of the journey as well. You just gotta keep growing together.”

Last week, Ivana Djokic said that staying locked into the mental aspect of the game is the toughest part of coming off the bench and playing sporadic minutes. On Thursday, Fiebich explained how she helps fill the gaps.

“With this schedule, we just play. We don't really practice,” she said. “But I think continuing to use every shootaround we get, even though it's without contact, just paying attention to every detail, watching film, doing your scouting, all the little things really helped me to kind of get more comfortable.”

Most importantly, they improved to 9-2 and are 3-0 in Commissioner’s Cup games. That’s the good news. The other part is that in less than 48 hours, the Liberty will face their toughest test of the year: a road game at the undefeated Connecticut Sun. There’s no word yet on whether Sabally or Vandersloot will be available.

“We're only 11 games in but I like how intentional we are, how we're trying to execute the scout, how we're staying poised when we face adversity,” Brondello said. [Those are] areas I think that we've grown [since] last year.”

The run last year went all the way to Game 4 of the WNBA Finals. Even if the Liberty haven’t been quite as crisp or consistent as they were by the end of last season, they’re still off to a better start than in 2023. Or any other year, for that matter, and it’s more than enough to build on.