NEW YORK — There was a familiar sight less than three minutes into the New York Liberty’s Sunday matinee against the Dallas Wings. Sabrina Ionescu played with a verve on the offensive end that got her team going.
Sunday afternoon was her first regular season game of the season after she suffered a preseason foot injury on the same foot where she sustained a third degree ankle sprain to begin her pro career in 2020.
That energy culminated when Ionescu got a rebound off an Arike Ogunbowale missed three-pointer and was able to push the ball up so that a streaking Jonquel Jones could receive her pass in the paint and score without a dribble.
The Liberty were up a very quick 11-2 and before Wings head coach Jose Fernandez could immediately call a timeout, Ionescu was running to the bench. She knew a timeout was coming and was the first to get there to congratulate her teammates on a fast start to the game.
Before Ionescu’s dish out in transition to Jones, the first four Liberty shots of the game alternated between Ionescu and Satou Sabally. The former college teammates wanted to make an impression early. And early they did.
Ionescu was aggressive moving off the ball and found her spots while she also found four different teammates for six assists in the first half. She hit two three-pointers in the second quarter, including one in transition and another that was a 29 foot bomb that took advantage of a slow switch between Ogunbowale and Aziaha James.
She was on triple-double watch heading into the second half with 11 points, six assists and four rebounds.
“Sabrina, she looked good,” Jones said to a group of reporters about the guard’s season debut. “I think to start the game, it just felt really nice to have her out there, and to connect with her, and then see her hit her deep threes.”
While Sabally is still getting used to where she’s supposed to be in the Liberty offense, she was more aggressive, more confident than she was in her debut on Thursday, and sought out mismatches early. She posted up Paige Bueckers deep in the paint and took threes when she was left all alone in the corner pockets and the wings.
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Sabally also moved on the floor with much more ease including a rim run where Marine Johannès was able to whip the ball ahead to her for an easy layup on the other end. She helped the Liberty get the score into single digits on two straight scores with under a minute left in the third quarter.
“Sometimes when you’re back after that first game, the game is moving so fast,” teammate Breanna Stewart told reporters postgame. “And it seemed like [Sabally] took a beat, slowed down a little bit, and was really conscious of being patient on both ends of the floor.”
But then the comfort for both players to be able to play their game sank, but also so did their respective focus. The verve faded and instead the chaos cascaded.
The Liberty couldn’t guard the three-point line well and allowed Azzi Fudd to go on a third quarter heater where she made five threes. Ionescu and Sabally missed a combined 11 final shots to end the game.
Both players missed opportunities to make the right pass and resorted to hero ball when the game was getting out of reach. During the Liberty’s postgame press conference alongside head coach Chris DeMarco, the mood was confusing. There was a embarrassment in the room, but not really frustration. There wasn’t panic, but there was a light dread about having to relitigate the team’s 91-76 loss.
Ionescu and DeMarco had trouble making eye contact with reporters in the room. Ionescu mostly stuck to drinking her mauve brown smoothie.
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Sabally, however, was more willing to engage.
“I feel good, Sabally said about she felt after playing in her second game of the season. “Obviously, it could be better with the outcome of the game, but I think just keeping perspective on our situation and what we can do better, and just learning from that. So yeah, I feel optimistic.”
Defensive woes are something to keep an eye on
So what exactly is the Liberty’s “situation” that Sabally is referring to? Does she mean the fact that both she and Ionescu are still ramping up along with the absences to Betnijah Laney-Hamilton who took some personal time off last week and Leonie Fiebich who landed in New York just days ago?
Is the team’s “situation” the fact that that they are learning a brand new system under a brand new staff?
The Liberty gave up 91 points to the Wings making Sunday afternoon’s game the third time this season that the Liberty given up over 90 points.
Jones and Stewart were very forthcoming about the issues the team has been having defensively. Both players noted the gaping holes in length and toughness without Laney-Hamilton and Fiebich.
Stewart took accountability as the team’s most veteran leader and motor.
“We have to continue to buy in,” Stewart said. “Continue to get it done. Listen that’s on me, that’s on the players and really taking ownership and not letting people walk into our house and just walk into threes.”
Jones and Stewart uttered a phrase that came from DeMarco during his more demure and reserved post game presser: a sense of urgency.
There wasn’t much of one, especially when the team’s pick up points on defense weren’t high enough and players didn’t have defensive awareness in transition. The Liberty often didn’t have the sense of urgency to match up in transition to find shooters and defend them.
Jones and Stewart were on the same page that even amid the defensive cogs the Liberty are missing, they have too much talent to be losing by at least 15 points in two straight games.
“It’s obviously a challenge, but I think that with the players that we have here, we should expect to win every time we step on the court,” Jones told reporters. “And honestly, all the games that we’ve played are winnable games. I don’t think it’s any team that’s just outclassed us or just has been that much better than us. I just think it’s just us needing to be better and kind of dealing with those growing pains right now.”
