SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Liberty were \u201cout\u201d of their league.<\/p>\n
They got outclassed, outplayed and outcoached by the undersized Valkyries, who won 76-67.<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones called out the team\u2019s lack of heart following the Storm loss \u2014 another example of New York getting outworked by a lesser opponent.<\/p>\n
Breanna Stewart said that was a problem again Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t play with heart and play with effort just when things are going good,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cIt\u2019s really the moments when you\u2019re at the lowest. And this team, we\u2019re obviously not a finished product, but this wasn\u2019t a great showing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, it was not.<\/p>\n
The Liberty should\u2019ve known better. <\/p>\n
The Liberty defends as Kaitlyn Chen attempts a shot during their June 28 loss. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Valkyries certainly did.<\/p>\n
Gabby Williams knew the Liberty would try to punch first Sunday after what happened in Seattle on Thursday night. <\/p>\n
She also knew the Valkyries, coming off back-to-back wins against the Dream, had what it took to beat a talented Liberty team with some serious flaws emerging.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Williams & Co. proved it.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries closed the second quarter on an 11-0 run to take a 41-29 lead at halftime. <\/p>\n
It was the lowest-scoring half for the Liberty all season.<\/p>\n
Things didn\u2019t get better in the third.<\/p>\n
On one possession, the Liberty allowed the Valkyries to grab two offensive rebounds before Kaila Charles got the layup to put the Valkyries up 16 with 5:37 left in the quarter.<\/p>\n
At the end of the quarter, the Valkyries inbounded the ball and Charles found Janelle Salaun for the buzzer-beater that gave Golden State a 64-48 lead heading into the fourth.<\/p>\n
It was all over from there.<\/p>\n
In the majority of the Liberty\u2019s losses, they lost along the margins. <\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu attempts a shot during the Liberty\u2019s June 28 loss. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
On Sunday, they were outrebounded 30-22, turned the ball over 12 times for 15 Valkyries points and conceded 15 second-chance points.<\/p>\n
The Liberty, supposed to be a championship contender, have dealt with injuries. <\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t been at full strength in either game against the Valkyries. <\/p>\n
They were without Leonie Fiebich (overseas commitments) and Sabrina Ionescu (left foot) for the first meeting. Satou Sabally missed Sunday due to concussion protocol.<\/p>\n
But general manager Jonathan Kolb built this star-studded roster to withstand the wear and tear of a 44-game season.<\/p>\n
For most of the past two weeks \u2014 outside of Tuesday\u2019s win against the defending champion Aces \u2014 the Liberty haven\u2019t looked consistently like a winner. <\/p>\n
Leonie Fiebich fights for possession during the Liberty\u2019s June 28 loss. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve racked up losses to the Mystics, Fire, Sparks and Storm \u2014 all teams sitting below them in the standings.<\/p>\n
The Liberty have a problem with playing down to opponents, but Sunday\u2019s issue was that they failed to meet the moment against a team that already beat them at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve never pointed the finger at anyone else besides ourselves, knowing that we\u2019re the ones out there playing,\u201d Ionescu said. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for us to regroup after this road trip \u2026 and we have to focus on the things that we can continue to get better on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberty have sky-high expectations for this season after firing coach Sandy Brondello a year after she guided the franchise to its first championship. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCovering the Liberty like never before\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Madeline Kenney’s Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Stewart said she\u2019s not surprised by the team\u2019s current standing, but knows there\u2019s a lot to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my 10th season,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you think it\u2019s gonna go good, sometimes it goes bad and vice versa. I think that the biggest thing that I can continue to preach to the teammates is not too high or too low. Of course, these games when you take the \u2018L,\u2019 these matter later, but we really want to just continue to be our best. I think that, of course, [there might be] some that we\u2019re going to look back on and really be upset at later, but the focus is on now, and that\u2019s all we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Liberty were \u201cout\u201d of their league. They got outclassed, outplayed and outcoached by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68628,9,11,8915,10,49,51,50,319,11452],"class_list":["post-280812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812","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=280812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}