Liberty Stumble Into WNBA Playoffs: Should Fans Be Worried? | Liberty Lately

The regular season is over for the New York Liberty, but we're still going with Liberty Lady. Dexter Henry, Madeline Kenny here with you, and we have made it, my friend, through 44 days. All the travel you've done, not me, everywhere you've been, all the beautiful stories that you have written. Season's over, but we still got playoff basketball to go. Best season. Best season ever? For you? I'm saying playoffs is the best season. Oh, playoffs is the best season. It's the best time of year. It's like Christmas. Yes, I would agree. Playoffs are the best season. Now, the Liberty, they ended this season with back-to-back losses to the Atlanta Dream. We usually like to talk about teams going into the playoffs with momentum, positive momentum, that is. Liberty don't have that here. Is that a concern for you? Not exactly. I think there's other things I'm a little bit concerned about, and that's like Breanna Stewart and Jonquil Jones' injuries, which we will touch on later. But I think the biggest thing about these two games heading into it was the first game in particular, that's the one I want to talk about more, which I know we already talked about. But today's game kind of felt like a wash. As soon as Breanna Stewart was scratched with the left knee soreness or whatever, it felt like, are they tanking for Minnesota? Because Minnesota already clinched the top seed. Do you think they were? It's a very possibility. It's possible. But no, I actually do think Stewie was dealing with a knee issue. And they want to be cautious. And they want to be absolutely cautious at this time of the season. But it just feels like you want to be a team that's like taking at the right time. And I can't say that this, maybe this team that we saw in Minnesota and in Toronto, like that team looks really strong and really good. But the last two games against the Atlanta Dream just were kind of duds. Yeah, it really did. I do agree. The first game, probably more disappointing because you felt like they had a chance to win it and probably change their playoff seating. Now we know the Liberty, they're going to be the AC. They are going to play the Minnesota Leafs in the first round. We are going to get to that in a little bit. I got to ask you when we look at this, now the season is over. Chris DiMarco finishes his first season, first 44 games here in New York. How do you evaluate the job Chris DiMarco did in year one here in New York? I think that he had a tough job. I think he knew going into this that he was going to be challenged. And expectations were obviously to win a championship. And he signed up for that. He signed up for the pressure that comes with being a head coach in New York. And the expectations of a franchise like the Liberty, who are so aggressive in their pursuit of winning championships. Obviously, they haven't been successful on the S yet. They've only won one. But that is the ultimate goal. And I think, you know, the cards that were dealt have complicated, you know, the first season with even the roster injury, like the injuries that they have had to deal with. Sabrina missed the start of the season. Satu Savali missed the start of the season. But Nyjah didn't really work out. She wasn't the player that she was pre-injury, which is no fault to her own. It's just was kind of a tough reality. And then Satu gets the concussion. They hold out hope that she's going to return. Ends up getting rolled out. You know, this team has really been carried by Brianna Stewart this season. Oh, yeah. And so I think when we talk about Chris's first season, we got to talk about some of, you know, there's plenty of blame to go around. And I think we got to look at the roster and look at the players that he has. And that depth that looks so strong, you know, coming into the season was maybe not as strong as we thought it was. And some of these injuries, you know, there was talk about like, oh, Jonathan Cole injury-proofed this roster. And then adversity struck and it turned out maybe that wasn't the case. And, you know, maybe then next year you need to get more athletic, you know, players and stuff like that. And so I think there's layers to all of this. Overall, I would give the first season, you know, an average, like maybe like a B minus. Yeah, like a B, like, you know, I think that there were lessons that were learned throughout the course of the season. And I think the biggest thing is like, he came to the WNBA with no background in women's basketball. Obviously, a lot of background in basketball in general. It was coaching a dynastic team or part of a dynasty and all of that. But I think it just, if anyone thought it was going to click year one, like seamlessly, they don't know sports. No, but we always said that, despite the championship expectations from the start of the year, we were like, this is going to be a process. Yeah. Now, I think we thought it could be better for the Liberty towards the end of the season. I think we saw this like progression. Yeah. Because they were 13-6 over their last 19 games after starting off 13-12 through the first 25. So we did see them improve better. Was it exactly where you want it to be? Probably not. It's a little disappointing with the finish here against Atlanta. Sure. I can see all that. Okay. So you gave a B in terms of a grade for Chris DeMarco. What about the Liberty season as a whole? When we look at this Liberty season and the players, are you giving them the same grade that you're giving the coach? Or do you look at it differently? Because the players had such high expectations, that including us, we thought this was a championship contender. We'll get to that later. But when you look at the expectations to what has happened and they have one more loss than they did last year, what grade would you give this Liberty team? I feel like if we were doing grades on players, we would have to go through individually every single player because every player has had good moments, bad moments. Maybe even some players have had really tough seasons. Sabrina Ionescu, for example, has really struggled this season. She has not looked at herself. She has dealt with injuries, obviously, still dealing with a back issue. But I think overall, the Liberty season I would rate with first-year Chris and players and the gelling and everything, I would rate it a C plus. They made the playoffs. They're probably not where they wanted to be position-wise. Definitely not. They're a loss worse than a year ago. Obviously, there's way more parity in the WNBA this year. It's way more competitive. And I think that's something that needs to be included when we talk about comparing last year's roster to this year's roster and record. But yeah, I think I would go with a solid C plus. Okay. Got Professor Maddy with the grades here. C plus there. Now, you talked about Brianna Stewart not playing in the regular season finale and some concerns for her and Jonquil Jones. Where are you? Where's the team with that for both of those players? And do you think they'll be ready for game one against Minnesota? Yeah, the Liberty were trying to evoke this little concern regarding their availability. I mean, Chris DeMarco was noncommittal about Brianna Stewart. He said that she was out for precautionary reasons today. But then he also didn't say when he was asked about her playoff status that he didn't say she was going to play or not going to play. That's kind of like hopefully she'll play. And with Jonquil Jones, she stepped on a fan's foot in the third quarter of today's game. Exited the game with an ankle injury. We didn't get a chance to talk to her post-game. Leo said that she was in good positive spirits and all right. And Leo said we're going to be good to go or something along those lines. Sabrina Unescu said that she didn't think any of those injuries were that concerning. But you know, anytime your star player gets injured this close to the postseason, it is a concern. And I think, you know, knowing Stewie, she's going to play. I mean, she played on a sprained MCL last year. Like this is the time that you push your body to its limits. And I think you're also going to see that with Jonquil Jones too. So depending on the severity of the injuries, if they get the okay that you can play, they're going to play. Yeah, they're going to play. You saw it, I think, in the final finale. Granted though, Stewie, you see how much... We could talk about it all year. This team needs Stewie. Stewie is the absolute backbone of this team and gets everything going because this was not a good showing for the Liberty with only 65 points in the regular season finale. With that being said, Liberty to Aidseed, we sat here the other day and I asked you, what matchup do you think could be good for them? You said, I think the Lynx could be a good first-round matchup for them. They get the Lynx now. Do they have a realistic shot of upsetting the Lynx in your eyes? I think they do. And I think it's because, you know, yes, they played the Lynx really well this season. Olivia Miles is kind of banged up right now. We don't know the severity of that. Sounds like she's also being haunted out for precautionary reasons based off of what Cheryl Rebles said. But, you know, so there's something there. Coming off a bad loss in Indiana, they've lost, I think, four of the last five games, if I'm not mistaken. So the Lynx are on this, like, unsteady ground right now. And it's one of those things where they've been the best team all season. They've been the team to beat. And now they're on this, like, they have shown a little bit of vulnerability. And I think the Liberty are, you know, the type of team that are really ready to pounce on that. And I think there's a lot for this team to prove. Last year's first-round exit did not sit well with anyone. And people were even talking about it today, about they don't want to feel that feeling again. And Leonie Febich specifically said that she doesn't want to revisit that feeling of last year. So I think in knowing that, knowing that, you know, Leo was talking about there's the confidence of recently beating the Lynx. They beat them in a series in 2024. So I think the Liberty are coming into the postseason with a lot of confidence. And I think they, as Sabrina said, she loves this is their first-round matchup. Listen, when a team has that, you like that confidence. We're going to have to go out and show it. Postseason basketball, different than regular season basketball. The 1-1-1 format makes things interesting. Yeah, you know, we hated the 2-1 format. So the 1-1 format makes things interesting. We saw that last year with the Liberty won game one on the road in Phoenix. So this could be interesting. We're going to have more on that coming later this week. Lastly, before we get out of here, I kind of want to bring it back to where we were at the beginning of the season. Because at the start of the season, Maddie, we talked about this team. We said, oh, they are absolutely championship contenders. This is the standard. This is the goal. This is what they're aiming to do. Now that we've been through 44 games, and you look at the way this team is going into the postseason, they've lost two in a row. Are they still championship contenders in your eyes? You see, you did that there when you just smiled a second. I knew that was like, you're going to say no. I paused for a second because a team with Breanna Stewart always feels like they have a fighting chance just because of who she is. But I think if we look at the big picture of this season, and there's been lots of ups and downs, but it just feels like it's just not been consistently there. It has not been sustainable. Their good plays and the way that they play and the defensive intensity and being on your P's and Q's and stuff. And then also offensively, there's been a lot of stagnation at times. And I think they've been turnover prone at times even. And so I think that it's just one of those things where this team just feels like it's maybe a piece away from being a contender. And granted, like we've talked about, there's been so much parity in this league. Like the Liberty have beaten every single team in the playoff picture, except for the Golden State Valkyries. And so I can say this now and they can go on some magical run. I mean, sometimes teams are teams of destiny. We just saw that in this summer. Yeah. Usually sometimes you'd like to see a little bit of a coming before you did mention the fact that they had been playing better before these two games. We saw that in Toronto. We saw that in Minnesota. Cunardac after the people break. Maybe that's the real Liberty team that we've seen. We don't know. We've seen strange things happen in sports. I'm with you on this. Doesn't feel like a championship contention team, the way they played this season. It's just been too uneven for me. But we'll see. Do they have the championship medal and grit in them? They've got players who've done it before. When you have Stewie on your team, you're right. You always should have a shot on that. But we are going to have a lot more on the playoffs. Maddie and I will be doing a very special playoff preview for you before game one of the Liberty series against the Lynx, which will start on Sunday. And we'll see how all of that plays out. That is going to do it for both of us from here at the Barclays Center. That is the wonderful Madeline Penny, our fantastic women's sports reporter. I'm Dexter Henry. We'll catch you next time on another edition of Liberty Lately.