Breanna Stewart on Sunday had trapped Allisha Gray near the sideline with her 7-foot-1 wing span. An off-balance and visibly flustered Gray looked for someone to pass the ball to before gravity finally won and Gray stepped out of bounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gray bounced the ball in frustration and was whistled for a technical as the Barclays Center crowd jumped to its feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fan screams were like the first rainfall after a drought, and the Liberty soaked it all up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Libs may have looked lethargic and disjointed in the first half and trailed by 11 at the half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Stewart \u2014 with her rebounding, defense and scoring \u2014 and Leonie Fiebich \u2014 with her timely 3s and aggressive shot hunting \u2014 helped lead a third-quarter resurgence for the 79-72 win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Breanna Stewart defends Allisha Gray during the Liberty-Dream game on July 13, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get as many wins as we can until we get [Jonquel Jones] back,\u201d Sabrina Ionescu said with a toothy grin. \u201cEvery one of these wins is super important.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
They couldn\u2019t have done it without Fiebich.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The German wing \u2014 who coaches, players and fans had been begging to shoot more \u2014 let it rip against the Dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the third quarter, Fiebich drained back-to-back shots from behind the arc to give the Libs their first lead since the opening quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a game where Ionescu\u2019s shots weren\u2019t falling, Fiebich finished with a regular-season career-high 21 points on wildly efficient 8-of-9 shooting (4-for-5 from deep.) She also had four rebounds and four assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stewart, who had played every position from point guard to center, notched her fourth double-double this season with 18 points and 10 rebounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leonie Fiebich looks on during the Liberty-Dream game on July 13, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
How the Liberty played in the second half was how they should\u2019ve played all game. They communicated on defense, attacking rebounds and making shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a complete 180 from the way the Liberty had played for most of the first half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t happy for the first half at all. We had four days off and we didn\u2019t bring any kind of grit or energy,\u201d coach Sandy Brondello said. \u201cSo it was like a reset for the second half. \u2026 When we have to have discipline with executing the scout to the best of our ability, but we\u2019re relentless. This is a group that stays together. We\u2019re going to weather the storm. I don\u2019t get too high or too low. At halftime, I said, \u2018We\u2019re winning this game.\u2019 But we know what we can control so just go out and do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dream are a tough matchup for any team given their verticality inside with Brionna Jones and Brittney Griner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s even more challenging for the Liberty, who are still without Jones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dream cooked the Liberty in the paint the last time they met, scoring 62 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Breanna Stewart dribbles during the Liberty-Dream game on July 13, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
But Nyara Sabally, Isabelle Harrison and Stewart made a point to not let that history repeat itself Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know they\u2019re going to get paint touches and their looks, but we just have to make it as difficult as we can,\u201d said Harrison, who had nine points and six rebounds. \u201cSo when we did our review, we talked about meeting them early and just being physical. \u2026 We just wanted to have a more aggressive mindset on the bigs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Griner had 10 points on 13 shots and Jones scored eight points. The Liberty outscored the Dream in the paint 38-32.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Liberty improved to 14-6 this season and have one more game \u2014 against Caitlin Clark\u2019s Fever on Wednesday \u2014 before the All-Star break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart on Sunday had trapped Allisha Gray near the sideline with her 7-foot-1 wing span. An off-balance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[3444,435,436,99,434],"class_list":["post-8642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8642","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=8642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}