Year 1 of the new-look Liberty had its ups and downs.
The Libs achieved the most wins in team history, had a player that won their second MVP award, secured a No. 2 overall seed and came close to capture the franchise’s first championship in history.
They did all this while a group of star players worked to fit into roles they weren’t previously accustomed to on a newly built superteam.
And that’s where things went wrong. They matched up against a Las Vegas Aces squad in the Finals that have collectively been through the fire for years. The Aces’ young core — A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum — have experienced tough losses and adversity since 2019.
They’ve been here before. Liberty’s newly built core group hasn’t.
“This group has been through so much. But it’s here,” Plum said on-court after eliminating the Liberty, 70-69, in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals. “And there was a lot of years that we weren’t so super. But you can’t build a superteam in a couple months. It takes years.”
The Aces’ experience — and Liberty’s lack thereof — showed in the Finals The Aces’ first two wins of the series featured an elite offensive display that looked like they’ve hooped in the playground together for years. Chelsea Gray threw no-look passes to places only her teammates could catch them. Las Vegas’ guard trio — Gray, Young and Plum — never settled. If one didn’t have a good look, they looked for the other better for a shot attempt.
“Their movement got us out of position a little bit,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said after her team’s Game 1 loss.
And despite the trio’s success, they knew the ball would have to go through their anchor — Wilson — to secure back-to-back titles. And Wilson did: the WNBA Finals MVP scored nine of her 24 points in the third quarter of Game 4 while the Liberty sputtered.
The second half of Game 4 revealed what the Liberty will have to improve on heading into next season: experience playing with each other in tense moments.
Brondello witnessed her team begin to crumble in the third. They lost the third period, 23-12, and allowed the Aces to begin the fourth quarter on a 7-2 run. A 12-point lead was relinquished en route to the one-point defeat.
While Breanna Stewart — 10 points on 3-of-17 shooting — was being hounded by Alysha Clark, the team forgot to rely on who got them there: Jonquel Jones. Cayla George, who started in place of the injured Kiah Stokes in Game 4, did a good job player her part in containing Jones who finished with six points on eight shots while grabbing 11 boards.
Aces head coach Becky Hammon’s gameplan of slowing down the opposing stars got her the win, but there were too many moments where the Liberty looked like they lacked chemistry and cohesion.
It showed with just under eight minutes remaining. After Betnijah Laney missed a makeable dribble pull-up jumper, she then recklessly barreled into Clark’s chest in hopes of drawing a foul. She missed and Young retaliated a three-pointer on the other end to extend the early fourth-quarter lead to six.
It was one of many moments in the second half where the Libs failed to collectively stop the bleeding.
“We also knew that, as much as they’re a team, they’re not a team, if that makes sense,” Plum told Yahoo Sports’ Cassandra Negley. “They’re really good individual players, but they don’t care about each other. And you can tell in those moments. They revert back to individual basketball.”
As Jones said throughout the season, “the film doesn’t lie.” And it won’t when the Liberty look back at this series. Assuming they keep this core together, the team will have more time to build chemistry in tense moments.
The Liberty’s Finals loss certainly hurt, but it’s a learning lesson.
WNBA FINE LIBERTY
The Liberty organization has been fined $25,000 for violating league rules governing postgame media interview access, the league announced Thursday. The fine comes after select Liberty players failed to participate in postgame media availability after Wednesday’s Game 4.
Sabrina Ionescu, Laney and Jones were each fined $2,000 for declining to make themselves available for postgame media interviews.
“By league policy, following the conclusion of a team’s postgame press conference in the interview room with its head coach and two key players, any additional players requested by in-person media are required to be available for interviews in an alternate location,” the league statement said.
