Sandy Brondello and the Liberty are in the driver’s seat. The 2-0 advantage over the two-time WNBA champion Aces in the semifinals series suggests Las Vegas has no chance of completing the ever-so-elusive three-peat.
No team in WNBA history has completed a reverse sweep in a best-of-five series. The Houston Comets — led by Hall of Famers Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper — were the only franchise to achieve back-to-back-to-back WNBA titles while on their journey to winning the league’s first four championships (1997-2000). And the 2000-02 Los Angeles Lakers — led by Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant — were the last North American pro team to repeat as champions in three consecutive seasons.
The reality of that made the Liberty’s task of defending home court on Tuesday night much more important.
And here’s how they did it in Game 2:
FOLLOW SABRINA
Sabrina Ionescu’s development into a three-level scorer propelled her to a higher level of superstardom in 2024. She showed that down the stretch of the Game 2 victory, contributing to the 13 of 19 fourth-quarter Liberty points and scoring seven of the team’s final nine points in regulation.
Ionescu, the WNBA’s third-best player in postseason three-pointers made per game (3.5), entered Tuesday’s fourth quarter with three made treys, causing the Aces defense to chase her past the arc while on the ball. But that’s where she thrived in Game 2, as all her field goals in the final period came from attempts in the midrange or around the rim.
Ionescu thrived getting past on-ball defenders and scoring baskets over A’ja Wilson in drop coverage, a defensive scheme that features the defender guarding the screen drop back into the paint area to prevent shots near the rim.
SABRINA IONESCU PUTS NEW YORK AHEAD
NYL claims the 2-point lead late in the 4Q
LVA-NYL Game 2 on ESPN2 | #WNBAPlayoffs presented by @Google pic.twitter.com/HPmho3uvBX
— WNBA (@WNBA) October 2, 2024
In the fourth quarter, she scored near the near the paint three times — against a defense designed against it — to score over a two-time Defensive Player of the Year winner, emphasizing her comfortability creating beyond the three-point arc.
And her pullup jumper at the 1:15 mark over Wilson was an exclamation point that put the Liberty back in the lead after Alysha Clark’s game-tying trey.
Ionescu’s head coach said before Game 2 that she felt “calm” going into the crucial matchup, and the feeling persisted knowing her star guard would come through in clutch moments.
“Still very calm even when it was getting a little stressful there,” Brondello said after the 88-84 Game 2 win. “I just trust that we can play poised in those moments and make appropriate plays. Sabrina was massive down the stretch there, making it harder for them.”
‘LAYUP CLINIC’
The whole Liberty team benefitted from easy layups — not just Ionescu. The Liberty got 44 points in the paint in Game 2, 20 more than their opponents. Aces head coach Becky Hammon said her team allowed 16 layups — 32 points — in a performance she described as a Liberty “layup clinic.”
The lack of resistance around the rim is a “no-no” for a Liberty team equipped with stars ready to feast in the paint.
“That was my message to the team after the first game. They had 16 layups,” Hammon said. “I don’t know how you beat a team when you give them 16 layups. That’s 32 points right off the top. We got disconnected from Sabrina. We know that’s a no-no.”
To make matters worse, the Hammon recorded 17 missed layups by her team in the Game 2 loss.
WANT TO CHALLENGE? ASK LEO
Two.
That’s the number of possessions the Liberty won by in Game 2.
And that’s the same number of calls Brondello challenged and eventually won.
The first challenge was on a foul call against Breanna Stewart while defending Kelsey Plum’s layup in the third quarter. Stewart was called for a foul after jumping straight up and getting her fingertips on the ball while Plum’s momentum landed her on the hardwood. After review, the call was reversed. The challenge sparked a second-quarter surge that saw the Liberty turn a five-point deficit to a six-point lead after winning the quarter, 24-13.
The second challenge, though, might have secured the win. Up two with 11.1 seconds remaining, the Liberty defended an inbounds pass as Barclays Center filled with anxiousness. Aces guard Chelsea Gray attempted to pass to teammate Plum, but the ball ended up out of bounds after a deflection.
Officials initially awarded possession to Las Vegas, but reversed the call after Brondello’s challenge. The Liberty later gained possession and Ionescu and Stewart iced the game with clutch free throws.
“About time I won one,” Brondello said postgame. She added that Ionescu directed the her to challenge different calls earlier the game, but decided otherwise. Using a challenge earlier in the game would’ve left Brondello without one to use on the momentum-shifting challenge in the fourth quarter.
Brondello trusted another player with her final challenge of the night.
“When Leo [Leonie Fiebich] tells me to challenge, I challenge. Leo never lies,” the head coach said.
KEEP JJ INVOLVED
Throughout the season, the Liberty have gotten in habits of disassociating Jonquel Jones from the offense in crunch time. There have been moments Jones showed flashes of her 2021 MVP self, then not get too involved in a following game.
And there have been game where she carried the Liberty in first halves, but stayed quiet in the second.
That wasn’t the case in Game 2.
JJ had @barclayscenter goin'
with this one!@jus242 knocks it down for
| #LIGHTITUPNYL pic.twitter.com/zbisEmM6lt
— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) October 2, 2024
The Ionescu-Jones pick-and-roll tandem was used countless time down the stretch and it garnered big shots, like her trey — on an Ionescu assist — with eight minutes remaining in regulation during a daunting fourth-quarter Wilson takeover.
Even on possessions Jones didn’t score or create an extra opportunity with an offensive board, she was never away from the ball — using her gravity to make defensive assignments even harder for the Aces.
The Sab-JJ tandem worked together on screen action eight times in the fourth quarter. And that doesn’t include screens used with Courtney Vandersloot on the ball or Jones being involved in off-ball actions.
MAKING A’JA WORK
Wilson is undoubtedly the greatest player in the world. The Liberty are giving her the attention as such.
For the second straight game, Wilson recorded numbers below her season average: 24 points and seven bounds. In the Game 1 loss, she finished with 21 points and six rebounds. She has yet to post a statline on par for her 26.9 points and 11.9 season averages that earned her a third MVP award.
The reason for that: length and blitzes. The extra attention, though, has forced the ball out of her hands for five and four assists, in Games 1 and 2, respectively. She averaged just 2.3 assists in the regular season.
Brondello didn’t like her team’s execution on Wilson at first, but the defenders adjusted en route to the win.
“We were overhelping and creating open threes [for Las Vegas] and they were making them in the beginning,” she said. “We were trapping when we shouldn’t have been trapping A’ja early and we gave her some easy ones.
“But I liked that we refocused. It was a great second quarter… That’s the growth that we have this year.”