{"id":240207,"date":"2026-05-22T03:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240207\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T03:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:50:11","slug":"valkyries-blow-out-liberty-87-70-in-satou-saballys-new-york-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240207\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries blow out Liberty, 87-70, in Satou Sabally’s New York debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Liberty<\/a> are still waiting for Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> to make her 2026 season debut. But Sabou Sabally took the court for the first time with her new team in Thursday\u2019s 87-70 loss<\/a> to the Golden State Valkyries<\/a> at Brooklyn\u2019s Barclays Center.<\/p>\n

In her first game action since October of the 2025 WNBA playoffs, Sabally scored five points with four rebounds and two assists in 16 minutes of play. (She missed all of Unrivaled\u2019s 2026 campaign<\/a> while recovering from a concussion sustained during Game 3 of the WNBA Finals<\/a> against the Las Vegas Aces.)<\/p>\n

Play 2026 Soccer Pick ‘Em with FOX One and make your picks for the world’s biggest soccer tournament<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Gabby Williams<\/a> led the Valkyries with 16 points, shooting 4-for-6 from 3-point range. Veronica Burton<\/a> and Kaila Charles<\/a> each followed with 13. Charles added seven rebounds, while Burton tallied four rebounds and seven assists, hitting 3-of-6 3-pointers. Golden State<\/a> improved to 3-1 and 2-0 on the road this season.<\/p>\n

Perhaps deflated by the news that Ionescu wouldn\u2019t play, the Liberty dragged through a first quarter in which they were outscored 25-15. New York got almost all of its scoring in those opening 10 minutes from Pauline Astier (seven points) and Breanna Stewart<\/a> (four).<\/p>\n

Sabally hit a 3 to open the third quarter, cutting the Valkyries\u2019 lead to 42-37. But Golden State went on a 10-4 run to restore its lead back to double-digits, and New York couldn\u2019t get much closer after that.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Stewart finished with a game-high 18 points and nine rebounds. Jonquel Jones<\/a> followed with 16 points, 8 boards and 3 assists. The Liberty drop to 3-2.<\/p>\n

Both Ionescu and Sabally were game-time decisions. Ionescu is still recovering from a left foot injury sustained during the preseason, while Sabally has been dealing with a cyst and regaining her conditioning.<\/p>\n

Last season in her lone campaign with the Phoenix Mercury<\/a>, Sabally averaged 16.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals in 39 games, while shooting 32% on 3-pointers. She was named to her third WNBA All-Star team<\/a>, along with new Liberty teammates Ionescu and Stewart.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Valkyries play the second end of a back-to-back Friday, visiting the Indiana Fever<\/a> (3-2). The Liberty are off until Sunday, when they host the Dallas Wings<\/a> (3-2) for a nationally televised matinee on NBC at 3:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Liberty are still waiting for Sabrina Ionescu to make her 2026 season debut. But Sabou…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27066,27375,93861,9414,68628,62443,24863,93860,9,11,8915,10,27062,93869,93857,27373,93859,27056,93870,93858,93871],"class_list":["post-240207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-dallas-wings","tag-gabby-williams","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-indiana-fever","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-kaila-charles","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-new-york-news","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-sabally","tag-sabou-sabally","tag-sabrina-ionescu","tag-season-debut","tag-the-liberty","tag-the-valkyries","tag-veronica-burton","tag-wnba-finals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}