She can insist that it\u2019s \u201cjust another game,\u201d but the spotlight will be on Sandy Brondello and her new team in Brooklyn on Thursday night (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network).<\/p>\n
The head coach of the Toronto Tempo was dismissed from the top position with the New York Liberty after the 2025 WNBA season, despite leading the Liberty to the franchise\u2019s long-sought first title in 2024 and receiving the endorsement of the team\u2019s key stars.<\/p>\n
New York general manager Jonathan Kolb cited a need for \u201cevolution and innovation\u201d<\/a> in explaining why the organization chose to part ways with Brondello, with his comments implying the Brondello, who began her WNBA coaching career in 2005 as an assistant and is now in her 14th season as a head coach, lacked the acumen need to \u201ckeep pushing the New York Liberty to new heights.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n He, instead, found what he thought his team needed in the NBA, hiring Golden State Warriors\u2019 assistant coach Chris DeMarco, who had no prior experience coaching women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n An early three-game losing streak, the team\u2019s longest since 2022, Brondello\u2019s first season in Brooklyn, called into question Kolb\u2019s confidence in DeMarco. Injuries and absences, certainly, can excuse the team\u2019s issues, even though those same issues weren\u2019t enough to grant Brondello grace last season.<\/p>\n Brondello, however, is nothing but class. When asked about her impending return game, she expressed appreciation for her time with the Liberty before redirecting the focus back to her current team.<\/p>\n Similar to DeMarco\u2019s Liberty, it\u2019s been an uneven start to the 2026 season for Brondello and the Tempo. Toronto also has had to manage injuries and absences, except with an entirely new team with no established stars.<\/p>\n Both teams enter the game with matching 5-4 records, putting them at No. 7 and No. 8 in standings. Sitting just inside the playoff picture, that current spot is in line with the expectations for expansion Tempo, but way below those for the Liberty, widely projected as the top team in the league prior to the start of the season.<\/p>\n Toronto, surprisingly, owns a better offense, ranking third in the league with a 110.0 offensive rating while scoring almost 90 points per game. After a fast start, the Liberty have slipped to 107.3 offensive rating, which is good for eighth in the league. New York is scoring just under 87 points per game.<\/p>\n On the other end, New York is solid, with a sixth-ranked 103.6 defensive rating. Toronto, in contrast, has to improve on that side of the ball, as their 109.7 defensive rating is only better than the Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks.<\/p>\n So, for Brondello\u2019s new squad to deliver her a win over her old squad, they\u2019re probably going to have to put a lot of points on the board. And while it might seem too simplistic, that likely will come down to the Tempo\u2019s ability to make their 3s.<\/p>\n In wins, Toronto has shot almost 40 percent from deep, registering over 11 3-point makes. In losses, they\u2019re hitting barely 28 percent of their triples. Even in a WNBA that increasingly has embraced the importance of high-volume 3-point shooting, Toronto\u2019s win-vs.-loss percentage differential from deep is striking and, eventually, will will regress to a less extreme mean.<\/p>\n But on Wednesday night in Brooklyn, Toronto will be perfectly satisfied if some unsustainably hot shooting leads to another victory.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your assessment of the \u201cBrondello Bowl\u201d?<\/p>\n Do you want to see Sandy to get revenge on the Liberty? And even if revenge doesn\u2019t motivate Brondello, do you agree that Eastern Conference Player of the Week Marina Mabrey surely will be fired up to hand it to the Liberty on her head coach\u2019s behalf? And should Ellie celebrate Sandy\u2019s return by dressing up in an old-school Australian Opals kit?<\/p>\n On the New York side, do you think DeMarco and the team found something in their two-straight wins? Or, did they just benefit from playing the flailing Mercury?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She can insist that it\u2019s \u201cjust another game,\u201d but the spotlight will be on Sandy Brondello and her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63,11452],"class_list":["post-253767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253767","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=253767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}