Breanna Stewart, absence and presence — Stewart speaks following New York Liberty loss

Basketball Wednesday

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The results were mixed. She’d greet each confirmation, a checked box, with an extra bounce in her step as she moved to the next spot on the floor, the next pivot, the next finish at the rim. But she slammed into plenty of walls, too, and greeted each of those with a small, half-frown, not letting it slow her down, just registering — okay, not this tonight.

“I mean, I think that it probably became more of like a mental barrier than a physical one,” Stewart would say later, reflecting on her role in an 86-58 loss to the Mercury that sends New York on the road to try and save its season in Phoenix on Friday night. “I mean, obviously, everyone knows what I’m dealing with. But the good about today, was I was able to test it, I was able to see how I felt and and really, I look forward to Friday and really letting loose.”

She’d told reporters Wednesday morning that the sprained medial collateral ligament meant she could play to pain tolerance, something she intended to do if possible. She described her pain as a 3 out of 10. Still, she awaited a final approval to go forward, and so did the Liberty fans watching her every move, worried what one false start would yield. A Liberty photographer audibly inhaled every time she finished at the rim.

When she finished warming up, her teammate, Sabrina Ionescu, gave her an inquisitive look — you playing?, it said — and Stewart nodded emphatically. At exactly 7:23 the word came: she’d been cleared to play.

But her presence brought its own questions, as surely as missing her would have forced the Liberty to rely even more on Emma Meesseman, an uber-talented midyear addition who never received the opportunity to log significant reps and minutes with New York’s other starters, thanks to Stewart’s injury shortly after her arrival.

Meesseman and Stewart were a 12.3 net rating together, but in 103 minutes. Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally are a 12.0 — in 682 minutes. Adjusting to Stewart’s new limitations did not come with a season for the team to draw on.

“I still think she looked pretty good out there,” Meesseman said postgame when I asked her what was different about this Stewart — six points, two rebounds in 20 minutes played. “Maybe it was just, testing the knee a little bit, at least play to the pain, but at some point it gets in your head.”

There were moments where the pre-injury Stewart could be clearly seen. Early on, the Liberty had her guarding Natasha Mack, which would be a waste of her dynamic defensive skills under normal circumstances, but served as a necessary breather on Wednesday night. Still, late in the first quarter, here came the Alyssa Thomas Freight Train, right on time, and Stewart was there to meet it, with a quick reaching out of her absurdly long arm turning a layup into a block, turnover and needed fast break for the Liberty.

And even when her limitations were obvious, she still found ways to impact the game. Dragging that injured leg, she willed her way around and past the defending of Sabally, missing the layup but drawing the defense sufficiently that the rebound led to a Kennedy Burke three.

But mostly, it was possessions like a pair of high ball screens from Sabally to begin the second quarter with Stewart guarding her. The Mercury recognized it was an advantage Wednesday night, when under almost any other set of circumstances throughout Stewart’s career, and as recently as Game 1, it would have been a problem for Sabally.

“You could tell that they wanted to run the high ball screen on me and really see how that went,” Stewart told me after the game. “And it worked for them today, but we’ll be ready for it on Friday.”

No one came over to help. Why would they? Breanna Stewart doesn’t need help on the defensive end. She gives the help. She implored her teammates to calm down late in the second quarter the game still within reach, just needing a Stewart playmaking possession. But her “settle down” motion with her hands came from the bench, and even her return a few minutes later could not keep Phoenix from opening up the score further, leading 51-37 by halftime.

The game was played at Alyssa Thomas-Satou Sabally speed all night. By late in the third quarter, New York had just two fast break points, the lead had ballooned to 20, and the restless Liberty crowd was left to wonder just what had happened to their defending champions.

It’s hard to feel for a defending WNBA champion, to be sure. But it’s also difficult to escape the feeling this team never really got a clear shot at defending its title. Jonathan Kolb’s ambitions matched the moment: a 2025 with true winner-take-all possibilities, finding replacements, even some upgrades over the 2024 roster. But that required what the 2024 Liberty enjoyed to a significant extent: health. And finally, about a week after Sandy Brondello and company could take a sigh of relief, look around and evaluate what they have, Stewart went down in pain on Sunday in Phoenix, and everything got scrambled anew.

It is not a group that makes excuses. I don’t know precisely what illness Sabrina Ionescu is dealing with, but she was greener than the Oregon Duck’s hat at postgame. Playing with Ionescu and Stewart at less than full strength isn’t the entire reason why the Liberty lost by 28 points, but it’s a pretty solid chunk of the explanation.

We marvel at these athletes who overcome adversity of all kinds, nothing more awe-inspiring than when they get the better of injuries that, let’s face it, would force virtually all of us to never stop screaming and crying. Leading their teams to victory is hard enough healthy. Doing it against the elite while compromised? It virtually never happens for a reason.

Phoenix, coached by the excellent basketball mind of Nate Tibbetts, adjusted. New York’s Sandy Brondello, one of the greatest coaches in league history, was forced instead to retrench and invent anew.

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By the fourth quarter, Stewart finally sat for good. Still, she was the first up at each timeout, clapping her hands together in support of her teammates. No knee injury could keep her from that level of encouragement.

And as the team prepares for a flight to Phoenix Thursday and by Friday, a game to decide whether or not they get to play again this year at Barclays Center, Stewart maintains her belief that her presence, and the collection of Liberty players on hand, can superglue that chemistry necessary to reach the form they’ve been searching for ever since the injuries began derailing this 9-0 start.

“Absolutely, we’re taking this as there’s no excuses,” Stewart said. “Whether we’ve had the time or we haven’t, we still have the talent and we have the people that are willing to do it, and that’s our mindset.”

But long after the game was out of hand, Brondello had kept Stewart and Meesseman in the game together, the intent clear: this group still needs to figure out how they fit. And time has run out to do it. It’s Friday night or bust.

This week in women’s basketball

Maitreyi captures the zeitgeist of the 2025 New York Liberty season here.

The Indiana Fever are still alive.

The IX Basketball staff voted on WNBA season awards.

Here’s how Elena Delle Donne plans to run USA Basketball 3×3. (Man do I wish we’d gotten to see her play 3×3.)

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Five at The IX: Breanna Stewart

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