{"id":116236,"date":"2025-09-03T08:02:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T08:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116236\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T08:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T08:02:06","slug":"ionescu-sits-again-liberty-clinch-despite-loss-to-valkyries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116236\/","title":{"rendered":"Ionescu sits again; Liberty clinch despite loss to Valkyries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN FRANCISCO &#8212; With <a data-player-guid=\"3b205f4b-7b5d-0115-3a92-f8f35ff473ed\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/player\/_\/id\/4066533\/sabrina-ionescu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> sitting out her third straight game with a left big toe injury, the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"ad8ccde6-59b3-fbe6-2faf-a835fa224ca1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/ny\/new-york-liberty\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Liberty<\/a> fell 66-58 Tuesday night to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"170598de-f63a-3497-a04d-1fc514508f56\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/gs\/golden-state-valkyries\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Golden State Valkyries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the loss, the Liberty clinched a playoff berth because the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"bfef1bdd-c2d1-310d-dd9f-645b90575da9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/ind\/indiana-fever\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Indiana Fever<\/a> lost to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"514d18a9-00a8-d52b-dda2-37d707f19bd0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/team\/_\/name\/phx\/phoenix-mercury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Phoenix Mercury<\/a> earlier Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Ionescu is considered day-to-day, coach Sandy Brondello said. The injury happened last week in practice and has kept her out of four of the past five games.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/africa.espn.com\/wnba\/story\/_\/id\/46131834\/wnba-2025-power-rankings-best-case-scenarios-playoffs-seeding\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/r1539932_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ionescu got a workout in on Monday, but Brondello said she was still not comfortable clearing Ionescu to play in San Francisco, which is about 25 miles from her hometown of Walnut Creek.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is her hometown, she has great support here,&#8221; Brondello said before the game. &#8220;Unfortunately, she can&#8217;t play tonight, but we&#8217;ve got the big picture in mind. We just need to get her healthy because she&#8217;s so important to what you&#8217;re doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Liberty fell to 24-17 with Tuesday&#8217;s loss and sit fifth in the overall standings with three games remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO &#8212; With Sabrina Ionescu sitting out her third straight game with a left big toe injury,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-116236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}