New York Liberty pull away from Chicago Sky late, win 91-76

The Chicago Sky are an odd team, as unique as the rookie star Angel Reese who captures much of the attention around the squad.

Despite being the least efficient team in the WNBA from the floor, they entered their road contest with the New York Liberty on Thursday night, as an above-average offense. While it sounds impossible, and it nearly is, Chicago rebounds over 30% of their own misses and turns it over at the second-best rate in the league.

They’re a young team under a first-year head coach in Liberty legend Teresa Weatherspoon, and yet, they win on the margins, securing the possession battle almost every night. And it goes beyond the size of their all-rookie front-court in Reese and Kamilla Cardoso.

In pregame, Sandy Brondello called the Sky “Chennedy Carter’s team,” and why wouldn’t she, with Carter leading the team in scoring as their well-defined lead guard?

Still, Liberty-Sky matchups are all about size, whether it’s Chicago deploying their traditionally big front-court to get 11 offensive boards and hand New York their only home loss of the season, as they did back on May 23, or the Liberty relying on Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart to protect the paint on one and expose less-skilled bigs on the other end.

(To that end, I recently published this piece for Swish Theory and how the Liberty have blurred the line between ‘size’ and ‘skill’ ever the modern hoops team.)

In the first half, both teams got their punches in. Reese scored just four points on 2-of-7 shooting while Cardoso couldn’t even got a shot off, as Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart let the rooks know what a dominant front-court looks like. They led the Liberty with 11 points each early despite a slow start from Stewie.

JJ also began her four-block night with a bang, and despite the many rotations she made in the paint, Chicago wasn't able to sneak behind her for offensive rebounds. Better yet, the Liberty forced eight turnovers before the break, winning the ever-important possession battle.

However, the Sky found other ways to be annoying guests. They held the Liberty to 8-of-21 from two in the first half, so despite decent outside shooting for the home team, Chicago took a 40-38 lead into the break after build a 13-point advantage in the second quarter. New York was tasting their own medicine, unable to generate easy looks from two.

Chennedy Carter got it poppin’ for the Sky with 14 early points, but she shot 6-of-14 to get there, having to fight through a sea of bodies for each shot attempt. The more frustrating guard was Marina Mabrey, who put up a dozen on just five shots, the Libs frequently losing her from deep...

The game remained in flux after a third quarter that saw the Liberty grab a two-point lead, and Courtney Vandersloot play her final minutes of the night. She recorded five of New York’s first six assists of the night as the only player that could consistently make strong reads against a congested Chicago D, but it continued a trend of the Libs being better putting Ionescu at the 1 and getting big elsewhere.

Vandersloot lost her 18 minutes by 20 points, and while some of that is due to Ionescu and Stewart missing tons of shots while she shared the floor with them early, New York’s wings just brought more...

Even with Betnijah Laney-Hamilton out with a knee injury, Leonie Fiebich got the job done, as well as Kayla Thornton coming off the bench. Both of them shot 4-of-5 from three and did well defensively on Carter, who finished shooting 10-of-21 for 22 points, slowing down after the first quarter.

While New York’s size across the board continued to play down the stretch...

...Chicago’s did not. New York began to get whatever they wanted in the paint, perhaps due to the Libs finishing the game a blistering 13-of-23 from three, or 56.5%. Ionescu hit a trio of bombs — all longer than 26 feet, per ESPN — to finish with a team-high 21 points, and that opened up the paint for her teammates.

We put the ball in Sabrina’s hands, the ball was going in, she’s a pretty special player,” said Brondello of the team’s offensive improvement. “Sabrina had a pretty — you know, her untypical start to the game, but you never can keep her down for more than 20 minutes.”

The Liberty shot 9-of-16 from two in the second half before garbage time kicked in (yes, there was garbage time), some of it due to the continued pick-and-roll excellence of Ionescu and Jones...

New York won the fourth quarter 28-14, as five players reached double-digits, as the game dwindled away, the main story then shifted to (or maybe, given the record crowd, it already was about) Angel Reese’s double-double streak of 14 games, a WNBA record.

She had ten points and nine boards as Brondello prepared to empty the bench with two minutes left, but grabbed an airball from Izzy Harrison (Chicago’s best reserve on the night with 12 and 12), much to the delight of the Barclays crowd...

Still, Reese shot just 5-of-17, and when Sandy Brondello was asked why the Libs were able to limit her, she gave a simple answer: “Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart. I think they just anchor us. We do a really good job of protecting the rim.”

Her two star front-court players finished with fitting stat-lines: 19/4/6/1/2 for Stewie, and 18/13/3/0/4 for Jones.

The Liberty are now 19-4, and despite Sabrina Ionescu reaching career-best play, despite the emergence of Leonie Fiebich and reliability of Kayla Thornton, it’s the starring bigs that have gotten it done to lead the way.

Plenty of teams have size in the WNBA, but few bigs are as skilled as Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones. Now, playing on the same team, it has only multiplied, and it’s especially scary when the two have a little extra to play for.

Said Stewart: “We all remember that they’re the ones that have beaten us at home, and wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.”

Final Score: New York Liberty 91, Chicago Sky 76.

Record attendance

Post=game, the Liberty announced that the night’s attendance of 17,758 was the most in franchise history, playing at Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center. The Nets record is 18,169 in April 2022 vs. the Cavaliers.

Injury Report

Good and bad news, here’s the good: Nyara Sabally played in her first game since May 30, ending a streak of 15 absences (including the Commissioner’s Cup Final) due to a back injury. She even scored a couple points in her seven minutes of action, adding two boards and two fouls.

Sabally was all smiles post-game, saying, “It was good, I’m glad to be back, very exciting,” before adding that the biggest challenge upon returning “wasn’t even really my jitters, it was my lungs.”

She explained that the training staff maintaining her faith during her six-week absence was key, and that she knows she’s facing a huge second half of 2024 with the end of the regular season, and of course, her appearance in the Olympics for Germany.

On the other end of the spectrum, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed her second straight game with a right knee issue, the same one that kept her out for three games in June.

Brondello didn’t have much in the way of an update on her status, designating her as “day-to-day” without much information beyond that, simply saying her knee didn’t respond well enough to a day of travel and treatment to give it a go on Thursday.

“It’s unfortunate for us,” said Brondello. “She’s battled these knee injuries, and we’ll see. Hopefully, she’ll be okay before [the Olympic break] and if not, after. I don’t know the answers to be quite honest, at this stage.”

Next Up

Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images

And again.

The New York Liberty will complete their home-and-home set with the Chicago Sky, traveling to the Windy City for an afternoon contest. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon, the team’s penultimate contest before the All-Star and Olympic break.

• Boxscore: New York Liberty 91, Chicago Sky 76 - WNBA
• Game Highlights: New York Liberty 91, Chicago Sky 76 (Video) - WNBA
• Ionescu, Jones lead New York to 91-76 win over Chicago as Angel Reese extends double-double streak - Doug Feinberg - AP