{"id":184146,"date":"2025-09-27T00:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T00:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/184146\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T00:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T00:27:08","slug":"leonie-fiebich-played-liberty-game-3-loss-with-broken-rib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/184146\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonie Fiebich played Liberty Game 3 loss with broken rib"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Liberty wing Leonie Fiebich, though she returned to the game, did in fact break a rib after taking a knee to the torso early in the team\u2019s season-ending, first-round Game 3 loss, general manager Jonathan Kolb said Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kahleah Copper appeared to have inadvertently kneed Fiebich while going for a layup in the first quarter in Phoenix. <\/p>\n<p>Fiebich doubled over in agony. She left the game and went to the locker room for further examination.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kolb followed her, fearing the worst. Before she had been taken for an X-ray, Fiebich turned to Kolb and said, \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Kolb waited to hear back from the team doctor, he watched the game on TV. He held his breath as he picked up his phone to hear Fiebich\u2019s results.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37220951\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/user-expressly-acknowledges-agrees-downloading-111768333.jpg\" alt=\"Leonie Fiebich of the New York Liberty lies on the court in pain after being injured during a WNBA playoff game.\" class=\"wp-image-37220951\"  \/>Leonie Fiebich holds her side after suffering a rib injury during the Liberty\u2019s Game 3 loss to the Mercury in Phoenix on Sept. 19, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m on the phone and I\u2019m hearing the words that I was fearing [which] was she has a fracture. I\u2019m waiting for the next sentence to be, \u2018And she\u2019s out for the game.\u2019 And I\u2019m watching on TV and Leo is checking into the basketball game,\u201d Kolb said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was a remarkable showing of Fiebich\u2019s toughness. She finished with three points, three rebounds and one assist in 28 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37217552\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2236087154.jpg\" alt=\"Leonie Fiebich #13 of the New York Liberty looks on during the game against the Seattle Storm on July 6, 2025 at Barclays Center Arena in Brooklyn, New York. \" class=\"wp-image-37217552\"  \/>The Liberty\u2019s Leonie Fiebich looks on during the game against the Seattle Storm on July 6, 2025 at Barclays Center. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Fiebich took a big leap in her sophomore season as a permanent starter after replacing Courtney Vandersloot in the starting lineup during the 2024 playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fiebich, for the second season in a row, was one of the league\u2019s most efficient shooters as she averaged 8.7 points while shooting 48.9 percent from the field, 42.5 percent from 3-point range and 87.1 percent from the free-throw line.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberty wing Leonie Fiebich, though she returned to the game, did in fact break a rib after taking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[436,99,434,70908],"class_list":["post-184146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}