The New York Liberty exuded confidence after they lost their second game in three days to the Atlanta Dream on Wednesday night. Typically, losing streaks cause frustration and anxiety rather than assurance.
Wednesday night, however, represented a different set of circumstances. The team officially accepted its fate as the No. 8 seed and the team that will play the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx for a best-of-three first-round series beginning in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon.
“We know them really well,” Liberty wing Leonie Fiebich said postgame. “We know what they want to do. I think we match up really well against them. I’m excited. I’m very excited.”
That self-assurance from New York lies not only in the history between these two teams, including the Liberty’s triumph during the riveting 2024 WNBA Finals, but rather in how the Liberty have matched up against the Lynx all season long.
In their three regular-season meetings, the Liberty have two wins, including a net rating of 9.2 by way of an offensive rating of 115.4 and a defensive rating of 106.2. Those are all above the Liberty’s 2026 season averages, with their offensive rating against the Lynx jumping more than 4% above their season average.
This trend of playing better than their averages against the Lynx especially extends to the Liberty’s big three in Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu, the heart of the franchise. All three have averaged above their season scoring averages in those games.
| Player | Scoring average overall | Scoring average against Lynx |
| Jonquel Jones | 14.5 | 15.7 |
| Sabrina Ionescu | 14.6 | 19.7 |
| Breanna Stewart | 20.8 | 25.7 |
These numbers are much more significant for Ionescu, who has struggled mightily during the 2026 campaign. Not only are her scoring, assists and rebounding averages down year-over-year, but her overall field goal percentage is the lowest it’s been since her first full WNBA season in 2021, and her 3-point shooting percentage is below 30% for the second time in a row.
While some have been mystified by what’s been going on with Ionescu this season and across her career, others have written her off.
Longtime Minnesota basketball writer Britt Robson wrote about Ionescu in his preview of the series and called her a “trifle overrated as a former top overall pick,” noting her down stretch from behind the arc after an elite 2023, but also that she is a “feisty, emotionally infectious competitor” and someone who “doesn’t shirk from big moments.” She is, after all, the player who hit probably one of the most important shots in New York Liberty franchise history in Minneapolis two Autumns ago.
Ionescu’s confusing season, one where she underperformed and looked like herself in spurts rather than consistently, has very much mirrored that of her own team. Even when the Liberty were on a nine-game winning streak that led them to the Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game, it was very clear that Ionescu was going to need to play well to get the 2026 Liberty to hit another level. Without her feel for the game early in the season, the Liberty missed her typical decision-making, her ability to play the pick-and-roll, and her post-entry passes to her two All-Star teammates, Jones and Stewart.
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Like her team, Ionescu dealt with a bunch of growing pains, quite literal and figurative, as she learned a completely new system under first-year rookie head coach Chris DeMarco. The adversity began when she suffered a left ankle sprain during a May 3 preseason game, and then she was out for another three weeks after a brief return with a different and possibly more mercurial injury to her back.
“You have a week and a half, two weeks of a training camp to kind of understand it,” Ionescu said on Wednesday about learning the new system. “But then usually, the first month, month and a half is when you’re kind of able to like implement new things and iron things out. And for me, especially, missing that entire time and then kind of just trying to like jump back in was really tough because I was learning the new system as I was also trying to come back from two injuries.”
But Ionescu wasn’t just learning a new system following two injuries; she was learning a new system that at first aggravated one of those injuries. Ionescu noted on Wednesday that before this season she hadn’t had to be a screener as often as she has in 2026.
While she explained why this new part of her role on this team would be advantageous for the Liberty because of how it could activate the Liberty’s inverted pick-and-rolls, that didn’t make it any less of an adjustment for her injured back.
“The first couple months, it was not pleasant,” she told The IX Sports. “I mean, I was having to, like, brace — and I mean, I wore like a back brace and tape — and was trying … to do everything I can to brace my core, especially getting hit on some of those screens as a screener.
“But now, I’ve kind of gotten used to it. Obviously, I’m not in as much pain as I was to start the year when I came back from it. So I’ve kind of gotten used to it, and I think as a screener, it helps a little bit because you can brace … when the screen’s coming, rather than when you’re a pick-and-roll player, and you get screened, and you don’t see the screen. Those ones hurt a lot more than the ones you see coming.”
Before Wednesday, Ionescu had shied away from speaking specifically on her health, although the most notable comment came right after the FIBA World Cup break when she explained that she endured “more aggressive treatment and work” on her body so that she could be as ready as she could for the final four games of the regular season and the playoffs.
Her adjustment to a new style of play that uses her back more actively while trying to rehab a back injury has contributed to the degree of difficulty she’s had to endure this season. “I mean, it’s really just injury-based,” she said. “If it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t matter. But I’d say like in the offense for sure, playing a lot less on the perimeter and more in the paint as a screener, yeah.”
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There will be questions once again when the 2026 campaign ends about what the ideal role and usage is for Ionescu, in addition to what exact archetype of player needs to play alongside her to get the best out of the Liberty’s only No. 1 overall pick in franchise history.
But until then, Ionescu has an opportunity against a team she has historically played well against to show those watching from the outside who she believes she is. For the Liberty to win two games against the Lynx and advance to the second round, Ionescu is going to have to play better than she has for the majority of this regular season.
For the second straight postseason, the Liberty will enter their first-round series a bit banged up. Stewart didn’t play in the Liberty’s final regular-season game against the Dream because of some left knee soreness that she says she got drained. And Jones, who tweaked her left ankle by stepping on a fan’s foot on Wednesday, is questionable for Sunday’s Game 1.
This is just the latest pang of adversity that the Liberty will have to persevere through. That’s a laundry list for a future story.
Meanwhile, DeMarco expressed his belief in his team after the Liberty’s final regular season game on Wednesday. “I will say this about our team: we do have a ton of fight, and when the moments become big, we have answered,” he said. “And obviously, these last two games we struggled a little bit, but we’ll be ready to go against Minnesota.”
And that starts with Ionescu, a player who has stepped up in a couple of meaningful moments this season, like her shot-making in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game and when she scored 9 points with under a minute left to play to beat the Chicago Sky back in July.
After the Liberty’s 83-65 regular-season loss to the Dream on Wednesday night, Ionescu spent 12 minutes with reporters answering questions on how the Liberty potentially could defy the odds against the Lynx, the top team in the league. She spoke about how these moments are what sports are about, and that’s not something she resents but rather embraces. She made it clear that she and her team need to “try and fight to be the best version” of themselves regardless of the situation.
Ionescu’s final words of the night were about her own accountability, the legacy of the Liberty and her commitment to New York.
“We embody what the city is,” she said. “There’s grit, there’s fight, there’s determination, there’s belief, and there’s this accountability piece that goes into it as well. You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and be like, ‘I got to be better.’ And for us as individuals, for me personally, I know I haven’t been at my best in this regular season … and I want to be better for the city and for this organization.
“And, I mean, if you tell me that we have a chance, then I’m always going to bet on myself and on my teammates to know that we can go out there and embody everything that the Liberty is, but also New York City is as a whole.”
A confident and committed Ionescu is a welcome sign, especially after a regular season that has tested her the most since her first years in the WNBA.
