Both the Liberty and Atlanta Dream are meeting in a WNBA second-round playoff series after making history.
For the first time in the league’s 30-year existence, New York became the first-ever No. 8 overall seed to eliminate a No. 1 after sweeping the Minnesota Lynx in the opening round.
And the Dream advanced to the second round of the postseason for the first time since 2018 after taking care of the Washington Mystics in two games.
Both squads are riding that confidence into a five-game series for a shot to advance to the WNBA Finals.
The difference, though, is this Liberty core — and some reserves too — knows what it takes to make it to the last coveted round.
The Dream doesn’t.
“Experience in the playoffs definitely matters,” said three-time champion and two-time WNBA Finals MVP Breanna Stewart.
Stewart of course turned an MVP-winning 2023 regular season into a WNBA Finals berth for the Liberty, which resulted in a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Las Vegas Aces. She got back there again in 2024 and defeated the Lynx in a thrilling five-game series that needed an overtime period in a Game 5 clincher.
Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu, who made one of New York’s most memorable shots ever in a road Game 3 win at Target Center, were present in those WNBA Finals runs, too.
Jones won WNBA Finals MVP in her efforts to secure the Liberty’s lone title. And she came to Brooklyn already having two WNBA Finals appearances as a member of the Connecticut Sun.
Also, Marine Johannes and Leonie Fiebich were contributors to the Liberty WNBA Finals appearance and have logged time in those high-pressure moments.
On the other hand, four of the Dream’s starters — Angel Reese, Allisha Gray, Rhyne Howard and Naz Hillmon — are getting into the second-round of the postseason for the first time in their young careers.
Jordin Canada, who played alongside Stewart for two WNBA Finals title wins in 2018 and 2020 is the lone starter with real experience in a deep playoff run. She averaged no more than 15.5 minutes per game in a reserve role for those Storm squads.
Two-time champion DeWanna Bonner’s extensive postseason experience — her 100 WNBA playoff games are the most in history — does help offset the team’s overall inexperience.
But it’s clear the Liberty has the overwhelming edge in that department. And the Dream must prove that their lack of postseason experience won’t be a big enough obstacle for the franchise to reach the WNBA Finals for the fourth time ever.
Stewart said she never forgets her first WNBA semifinals series, a Storm matchup against Diana Taurasi’s Phoenix Mercury squad in 2018. Stewart recalls the whirlwind five-game series that included the star breaking teammate Sue Bird’s nose with an inadvertent elbow and game-altering clutch baskets by Taurasi.
Stewart and the Storm eventually won that series and swept the Mystics in the finals.
“There’s so many things that you have to stay focused on the end goal,” Stewart said. “And with this [Liberty] group, a majority of us have been in this type of series where it’s like not getting too high or too low is the huge important part.”
An argument could be made that first-year head coach Chris DeMarco’s inexperience — the ex-Warriors assistant never led a college or pro WNBA/NBA program — could be a factor in upcoming high-pressure moments.
But Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve refuted those ideas prior to her Game 2 first-round loss. Perhaps, she was correct considering DeMarco’s staff outcoached hers in two games.
Even on the heels of the historic upset, the Liberty claimed all business heading into Round 2.
“To be honest, we weren’t like very high off of the first-round win,” said Ionescu. “I think the expectation for this group is not just win a first-round matchup no matter who we’re playing. I would say we honestly stayed pretty level-headed. We were obviously thrilled to get it done in two to get a couple extra days. I think for the group it was not settling, and knowing now we have another matchup that we need to win in order to get to what we’re trying to accomplish.”