The New York Liberty have gone from fighting injury to fighting illness and it hasn’t mattered one bit in the standings.
New York beat the Atlanta Dream, 81-75, on Sunday afternoon for their 12th win in their last 13 regular season games. Courtney Vandersloot and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton were fully back in the rotation, but Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu played despite being sick.
After the game, Ionescu met with the media, motioning with her hands for the assembled scrum to keep their distance. She rasped out answers, clutching a cup of hot tea and honey.
“We knew people were under the weather and just kind of had to rally behind one another,” Ionescu said. “No one cares if you’re sick, there’s no excuses.”
That she played 33 minutes is incredible enough, even if she shot 3-17 from the field. She also only had one turnover, following a Commissioner’s Cup final against the Minnesota Lynx where she turned it over seven times.
Jones wasn’t herself either. She only took five shots and had four rebounds in 29 minutes — somehow actually a better offensive performance than against the Lynx, who shut her down entirely (3 points, 0-3 FG).
“JJ was feeling a little under the weather, so give her a little grace in that regard,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “But I think she found some energy in the second half and that helped us. That’s what we needed.”
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was Liberty’s on-court leader
With Ionescu and Jones sick, Laney-Hamilton had to step up in her second game back after missing a week with a knee injury. She did her part filling the stat sheet, scoring 18 points on 4-6 three-point shooting with five rebounds and six assists.
Just as importantly, she provided an energy on defense that her teammates were able to feed off.
“B is the type of leader that is quiet but you can follow her actions,” rookie Leonie Fiebich said. “She's really someone who is being an example out there, especially on the defensive end. It's so much fun to defend with her because I can really learn from her.”
Laney-Hamilton earned her teammates’ respect long ago, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when she’s able to step in as the on-court general.
“I didn’t say one word today. I didn’t have a voice,” Ionescu admitted.
For her part, Laney-Hamilton kept it simple, saying after the game that all she did was point out what she was seeing — specifically after the Liberty had a dreadful start, trailing 24-13 after the first quarter.
“Just making sure that we were vocalizing that, so that way we could do the things that we needed to do,” she said.
Leonie Fiebich can thrive in her bench role
Like most rookies, Fiebich has had her ups and downs in her first couple months in the WNBA. When Laney-Hamilton went down with an injury and Courtney Vandersloot had to miss time after her mother’s death, she was thrust into a starting role.
That put those ups and downs on full display.
Now that she’s back in a bench role, she’s perfectly fine with being a spark. On Sunday, she gave the Liberty everything they needed.
Fiebich came up with timely steals and momentum-swinging buckets, bringing another sold out Barclays Center crowd to a roar. In one critical fourth-quarter sequence, she scored on a pass from Jones, immediately stole the ball in the back court, missed a layup, got her own rebound, and converted.
“It just helps to have that support behind you because [otherwise] if you go and you don’t get the ball, you’re screwed,” Fiebich said.
“Also, I felt like there was a lot of doubt in their eyes when they were trying to pass it,” she added. “That’s always something as a defender [where] you just go for it.”
That steal was her first of three in the fourth quarter and pushed the Liberty’s lead from two to six in the span of 12 seconds.
“That’s why she was on the floor at the end of the game,” Brondello said. “Her size, her versatility, and she got those critical steals for us. She didn't just make shots, she created shots.”
When the Dream got closer again, cutting their deficit to three on a Jordin Canada triple with 4:20 left, Ionescu responded with an immediate three of her own and Fiebich followed it up with another.
That showcases the Liberty’s biggest strength better than almost anything. With so much star power in the starting lineup and with players coming off the bench who would be starting elsewhere, they don’t need everyone to be perfect.
“These games help everyone to see, okay, we’re really one unit and everyone can play on this team,” Fiebich said.
New York lost just once in the games that Laney-Hamilton and Vandersloot missed, and against the Dream — who just beat the second-place Connecticut Sun — they found a way despite two starters dealing with obvious illness.
Jones and Ionescu have two days to rest up, because it doesn’t get any easier from here. The Lynx are back in town on Tuesday.
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