The New York Liberty are in the playoffs. It didn’t happen how they wanted or how anyone who follows the league could have expected, but they’re in the field.
As the 5 seed, New York will open its best-of-three first-round series against the Phoenix Mercury in the desert on Sunday afternoon. The bad news for the Liberty is that they lost three out of four games to the Mercury in the regular season.
The good news? The current Liberty team is so different that the regular season matchups really don’t mean much.
For one thing, Emma Meesseman only played in one of those games. The 2019 WNBA Finals MVP will likely come off the bench on arguably the most talented roster in the playoffs — even if the Liberty haven’t lived up to it for most of the season.
And to that point, the Mercury have not seen the Liberty at full strength yet. The first matchup between the two teams is the closest they came, with the full Liberty roster available but Meesseman not yet with the team.
In their second meeting, Jonquel Jones was injured. In their third, key reserves Isabelle Harrison and Nyara Sabally did not play. Sabally was again out along with Sabrina Ionescu in their most recent game.
A healthy roster gives the Liberty a unique look
Meesseman’s addition and a healthy roster give the Liberty an opportunity to go with a jumbo lineup — a fascinating option against a Mercury team that has both size and the ability to spread the floor on offense.
New York played a grand total of 29 minutes this season with Meesseman, Jones and Breanna Stewart on the court together, according to Lucas Kaplan of NetsDaily. That doesn’t mean head coach Sandy Brondello should shy away from it against Phoenix.
For one thing, Stewart and Jones are both former MVPs and Meesseman has been exceptional off the bench. You’d always rather have your best players on the court whenever possible.
There wasn’t much to take away from the Liberty’s regular-season-ending win over the Chicago Sky on Thursday, but Brondello did use the game to experiment with the bigger lineup.
“I thought the big lineup was successful for us, and that's something that we wanted to get more minutes today to see,” she said after the game. “It's just the players getting used to each other even when we go big, like knowing when Stewie's at the 1, what do we want to run and how do we need to play at both ends of the floor?”
Stewart running the point at 6’4 gives the Liberty an advantage few other teams can compete with. Being able to see over the defense, combined with the decision-making of a superstar veteran, can help the Liberty in the half-court, where they’ve struggled at times with turnovers and poor communication.
For Stewart, the big lineup in the win over the Sky was necessary practice.
“I think what worked is we gave each other space to operate, and that's the most important thing,” she said. “We tried it earlier on, it seemed like we were on top of each other. But now letting one action develop on one side and then moving to the second side — I think that just continuing that chemistry and knowing what the playbook is gonna be for that group because it's different than when we have three guards on the court.”
How the Mercury can exploit the Liberty lineup
The Liberty’s jumbo lineup comes with some mild concern on the defensive end, where New York has not been nearly as consistent as it should be.
Phoenix attempts the third-most three-pointers per game of any team in the WNBA (the Liberty are fourth). And even though they’re far from elite from distance, their best three-point shooters are the ones that see the court the most. Rookie Monique Akoa-Makani shot a touch under 40% from three this year, starting 40 of Phoenix’s 41 games. Kahleah Copper isn’t far behind, making 37.7% on 5.4 attempts per game.
The concern is that even under normal circumstances, the Liberty have struggled communicating and navigating even simple switches on ball screens. It all came to a head when Natasha Cloud unloaded on the team during a recent west coast swing.
“The reason we’re not connected is because we don’t know what the f–k we’re doing,” she told the New York Post. “We have a defensive scheme and a foundation, but there’s a lot of gray areas in between, especially with ball screens and getting hit. Do we have to switch? Do we have to be here? Do we have a nail there? Do we have to rotate now? How do we communicate that if we’re not talking?”
Now put in a combination of players who haven’t even played one game’s worth of minutes together over 44 contests this season.
Fortunately for the Liberty, the big lineup — and Leonie Fiebich when she gets involved — has the length and athleticism to offset some of those issues. It’s just a matter of minimizing the mistakes and exploiting Phoenix on the other end.
The Liberty and Mercury play Game 1 of their best-of-three series Sunday at 5 p.m. ET.
