New York Liberty bounces back with 81-75 win over Atlanta Dream

A week before Sunday, the New York Liberty came to Atlanta and crushed the Dream, making short work of Tanisha Wright’s team in preparation for the Commissioner’s Cup final two days later. Rookie Marquesha Davis doubled her career points total in that final, and then some.

In the week that followed, the New York Liberty lost a grueling Cup Final, which saw the return of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton after a knee injury cost her three matches, and the return to action of Courtney Vandersloot after missing nine matches due to the death of her mother .

The five days since the Cup final have given the Liberals a real chance to breathe after a 15-3 start and a Cup loss, a month and a half marked by 19 games, injuries, rashes, big minutes for key players and little time to rest.

Meanwhile, the Dream fell to a worse-than-expected 6-9 after that loss to New York, but followed their mini-break with a joyous win over the second-ranked Connecticut Sun.

As such, the first half of this Sunday’s contest followed a predictable storyline. The Liberty came out flat in one of its worst first quarters of the season; no one could shoot, then the movement of the ball slowed down. Each starter was not just trying to get theirs, but trying to get the team going again; not a selfish offense, but an unnecessary offense.

The Dream took the opportunity to win the period 24-13. Substitute Maya Caldwell scored eight quick points and Liberty legend Tina Charles started her night with 16 points and 12 rebounds with a bang. It was the kind of inside-outside attack you’ve come to expect from the Libs, an attack we’ve seen from Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones throughout the season, especially in many of the first quarters dominant.

But the W’s most effective pick-and-roll duo wasn’t very productive on Sunday. As in the Cup Final, Jones was often relegated to the background in New York’s offense, and scored only five points and four rebounds.

Head coach Sandy Brondello said, “JJ was in a bit of a bad situation, so I’ll give him a little bit of grace in that regard… Sometimes players say, ‘Okay, things aren’t going well , for me, I’m not doing well. score,” but there’s more to it than just scoring. And I think JJ helped us be successful by setting screens and rolling…playing the right way. It’s always critical. It’s not about how many shots they take for me.

Ionescu hasn’t played up to his level either, but that’s not for lack of trying. She played 32 minutes, hitting 3 of 17 shots to score ten points and four assists. It was one of those nights for the All-Star guard, who scored a few three-pointers, and got the better of Dream defenders in a few one-on-one faceoffs.

So the first half was all about damage control for the Libs, minimizing the pain of their slow start. And thanks to their defense, they did just that. Seven turnovers for the Dream led to 10 Liberty points in the first half, while Breanna Stewart, Laney-Hamilton and Vandersloot pulled New York within five points at halftime…

Those three continued their momentum after the break, going on a 25-4 run that spanned the second and third quarters.

Sloot played 21 of the first 30 minutes before missing the fourth quarter – we’ll come back to that – and put in a pretty vintage performance: seven points, seven assists, no turnovers. This has earned her at least one admirer, in the person of her full-back partner, Ionescu: “It’s nice to see her back there, especially as she gets back on her feet and we continue to find ways to ‘use like we did before.. it’s been so fun to see how she came back and didn’t really miss a beat.

Breanna Stewart finished as the team’s top scorer with 22/12/3/2/1, playing an additional 37 minutes but needing nearly all of those minutes to lead New York to victory. She also became the fastest player in W’s history to reach 5,000 points, a feat she and her head coach celebrated after the game.

Atlanta, led by Allisha Gray’s 24 points, including 15 after the break, wouldn’t get away with it. New York’s wings needed to stand out in the fourth quarter, and that’s exactly what they did. No, not Kayla Thornton, who played just ten minutes (her minimum since May 25), but Laney-Hamilton and Leonie Fiebich closed out the Dream with ball pressure on one side and a 3-pointer on the other.

Laney-Hamilton shot 4-of-6 from distance to finish as New York’s second-leading scorer with 18, aided by the return of Vandersloot. The fact that God didn’t just give Laney-Hamilton the ball directly, but the presence of Sloot lightens Laney-Hamilton’s burden a bit on the offensive end, pushing her from ball-handler to play-finisher, where she excels.

The same goes for Fiebich, who shot 5 of 9 and terrorized the Dream with his length and activity on defense, leading to three steals…

As usual, Fiebich praised her teammates for their performance: “It helps to have support behind you, because if you go out there and you don’t get the ball back, you’re done. It just helps to have my teammates behind me, but I also felt that doubt in their eyes when they were trying to pass, so that’s always something as a defender, you go for it. If you see that in their eyes, you just steal the ball and hope you get it back.”

The Libertys often made these flights on Sunday afternoons, and they often got them. Atlanta shot more efficiently from twos, from threes, from the stripe, but that didn’t matter, not with a turnover disparity of 18 to 7. As such, it wasn’t a nice victory for New York, but they still remained the better team. Even Jones and Ionescu stepped up to make decisive threes in the fourth quarter…

“We had to dig deep, we had to start playing as hard as we could and the right way,” Brondello said of the win. “We didn’t make a lot of shots in that first half — we had some open shots — but we had to keep moving the ball and making the high-percentage shots, and they started dropping when we needed them.”

The Dream really helped the Liberty over the past week. New York added two wins to its win column, even though Tina Charles put on a bit of a show for the many fans she still has in New York, while the Dream still managed to beat Connecticut. As a result, the Libs are now 16-3 in the regular season and a game and a half ahead of Connecticut for the best record in the league.

Losing in the Commissioners’ Cup final is a wound that doesn’t go away easily, but New York could certainly do a worse job if it tried.

Final score: New York Liberty 81, Atlanta Dream 75

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Already a revenge?

The New York Liberty will look to get revenge on the Minnesota Lynx for their Stanley Cup Final loss in their next game, and yes, that home game will actually be at the Barclays Center. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday.