New York Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello isn’t giving up on her team.
Granted, even if she had, she’s smart enough not to say it publicly. But the two-time championship coach cited precedent on Friday for why she thinks her team can still make noise in the playoffs.
She recalled her 2021 Phoenix Mercury team, who went 19-13 in the regular season, losing their last three games headed into the playoffs, where they were the 4 seed.
“We had to do two knockout rounds and beat Vegas and went to the Finals,” she recalled. “So anything is possible, so I'm gonna lean my hat on that.”
When the Mercury got to the playoffs that year, they survived those first two single-elimination games by the skin of their teeth, beating the Liberty by one and the Seattle Storm by five in overtime.
But what won those games for Phoenix is exactly what the Liberty will need down the stretch. The Mercury’s stars stepped up. Skylar Diggins had 22 while Britney Griner had a 16-and-10 double-double against New York. The next game, Griner went for 23 and 16.
And after Phoenix lost the first game of their best-of-five series against the Las Vegas Aces, Diana Taurasi responded with a 37-point onslaught.
Maybe it’s overly simplistic to say that the Liberty’s good players need to play well for them to win. But there are also stats that show exactly how important their stars are. The Liberty have never lost a game in which Jonquel Jones has logged a double-double (33-0). They are also 10-0 this season in games in which Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart all start and finish the game.
The problem is those players have all missed extended stretches with injuries. So have Kennedy Burke, Natasha Cloud and Leonie Fiebich.
“We built this team around all the players being available, and I still think, once we get them back, we're still going to be really competitive in that regard,” Brondello said. “It's just navigating the highs and lows.”
She added that dealing with so many injuries over a season with so few off-days, there has even been a learning curve with her — a two-time championship coach and the only coach in WNBA history to take her team to the postseason in each of her first 13 seasons on the job.
“I've never actually experienced this many injuries as I had this year,” she said. “So it's been a learning curve for me with what's best, but we just had to stay true to what we want to do.”
The Liberty showed real reason for hope against the Storm
The Liberty took a step forward Friday night, defeating the Seattle Storm, 84-76, for only their second win over a team for sure going to the playoffs since July 25.
New York, again playing without Ionescu and Nyara Sabally, recovered from a brutal second quarter by toughening up on defense and holding the Storm to only 29 points in the second half.
As Leonie Fiebich explained, the Liberty just got tougher.
“So we just made everything a little bit harder,” she said. “We were more physical, we were rebounding better, and we were just congesting the paint a lot better.”
That’s what Brondello has spent the season begging for. These are professional athletes, so actual desire to win is never a real question. But when it looks like the team is lacking effort, it’s a concern, and that’s been the case too often. Brondello said she is starting to learn what buttons to push.
“For me, when to push them, but when do you make sure you're giving them confidence as well?” she said. “We just need to play on a different level.”
