FIBA World Cup<\/a> break: the Liberty are a middling team that struggles against the upper echelon of the WNBA.<\/p>\nAnd with five games remaining in the WNBA regular-season schedule, this team is running of time. A postseason matchup \u2014 against a team like Golden State \u2014\u00a0 likely would be a difficult mountain to climb considering what has transpired this season.<\/p>\n
The Liberty\u2019s offense suffered its three worst shooting games against the Valkyries. And Thursday night\u2019s blowout showed no real improvement despite an overall healthy roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re a good team that [rotates] well. They\u2019re very active defensively. They do a good job of kind of forcing people to where their help is,\u201d said Jonquel Jones, who finished with a team-high 18 points and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I just think they\u2019re a really great defensive team. But again, I do think that our shot-making tonight just wasn\u2019t the level that we\u2019re used to it being at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Setting the pace is key against the Valkyries, a team known for its hard-nosed defensive mentality. The Liberty did just that, trailing by just two points in the first while exhibiting good ball movement and some positive possessions in transition.<\/p>\n
Then, the positives stopped.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries honed in on the Liberty with a zone defense as DeMarco started the second quarter with his double big lineup \u2014 Jones, Han Xu, Leonie Fiebich, Sabrina Ionescu and Rebekah Gardner. It resulted in three initial misses by Han before DeMarco pulled the plug on the lineup.<\/p>\n
Eventually, no mix of rotations in that quarter worked as the Liberty recorded just 11 points in the period and trailed by 12 going into halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like when they went to the zone, we were expecting it too. Yet it still stumped us a little bit,\u201d Rebecca Allen said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we adjusted super well individually or collectively to it. But yeah, they\u2019re one of the best defensive teams in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, shots weren\u2019t falling \u2014 even the wide-open looks. The team made just seven treys on 31 attempts. Fiebich shot 1-of-6, Allen shot 1-of-4, and Breanna Stewart missed her lone attempt.<\/p>\n
But Ionescu\u2019s 1-for-9 shooting beyond the arc headlined Thursday\u2019s struggles as she continues her rough shooting stretch. She\u2019s now shot no greater than 20% from three in seven consecutive games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought really for a majority of the game we were getting good looks at three, like really good looks at three, and just couldn\u2019t convert,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n
Perhaps chalking the loss up to an off-shooting night serves as a consolation for the Liberty in a matchup where everything else went wrong.<\/p>\n
But the lows were so low that it\u2019s hard to lean on such consolation. It makes it even harder knowing the Valkyries were in the midst of a five-game road trip, playing in the second game of a back-to-back (third game in four days) while the Liberty have been off since Saturday.<\/p>\n
Yet after the first quarter, Natalie Nakase\u2019s squad dictated the game throughout.<\/p>\n
Her defense featured some possessions with big Kiah Stokes in drop coverage. Then, the Valkyries head coach changed her lineup to one suitable to switch on every Liberty offensive set.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they went small. In turn, that hurt us a little bit,\u201d said Ionescu. \u201cThey obviously were driving, kicking. They switched one through five. They kept the ball in front. So I would say probably their small lineup is what maybe threw us off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberty\u2019s deficit stayed in double figures while succumbing to the pressure of Golden State\u2019s small lineups.<\/p>\n
Although the Liberty are equipped with taller, longer players \u2014 Stewart, Fiebich and Jones \u2014 the right buttons weren\u2019t pushed to combat Golden State\u2019s small lineups.<\/p>\n
As the Liberty struggled on offense, the Valkyries \u2014 owners of the WNBA\u2019s slowest pace \u2014 were content playing their style of basketball. Cecilia Zandalasini torched New York for 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting by halftime before ending with 20 points. Gabby Williams poured in 16 on four made three-pointers and Tiffany Hayes led the bench unit with 12 points.<\/p>\n
Nakaske\u2019s bench outmatched DeMarco\u2019s, 30-12.<\/p>\n
Overall, Nakase outmatched DeMarco throughout the regular-season sweep. The loss put the Liberty, who have already clinched a postseason berth, in the 8th spot. If the season ended Thursday, it would set up a best-of-three first-round series against the Minnesota Lynx, who are three games ahead of Golden State for the top seed.<\/p>\n
The Liberty are tied with the Wings in the standings, but claim the lower spot with Dallas owning the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries still loom as a potential first-round postseason matchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel disappointed with this one and a little bit embarrassed as well. I just don\u2019t think we should ever lose like that on our home court. But I do think we\u2019re playing hard, we\u2019re playing with intent. It\u2019s just we didn\u2019t find a way tonight,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like today was a bit of a step backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s tough for a team to handily defeat another three times in the regular season. But that\u2019s what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27066,27111,124935,24863,14282,9,11,10,7121,27379,11452],"class_list":["post-332035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-chris-demarco","tag-ionescu","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-liberty","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-playoffs","tag-valkyries","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332035","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=332035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}