The New York Liberty’s 84–70 victory over the Phoenix Mercury marked the return to action of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who had missed the previous nine games due to injury. She contributed nine points, three assists and three steals in her 100th game in a Liberty uniform.
“It’s great to have B back,” said Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello. “She’s one of the best two-way players in the league. She adds so much to our team and you saw it [in the fourth quarter]. … The more minutes she played, the more in rhythm she got, but we know she’ll get even more rhythm the more games that we play.”
Breanna Stewart continues to have an MVP-worthy season, contributing 21 points, six rebounds and six assists. She spoke about embracing hard wins.
“We were a little bit frustrated with the way we played, especially in the second quarter, and coming out the start of the second half knowing that we have the opportunity to change it, doing that and locking in and staying together,” she said after the win over the Mercury. “It’s not an easy place to play here. Obviously, they have a ton of talent on the floor. But no matter what, whether we did things right or wrong, we had each others’ backs and covered up a lot of our mistakes.”
Brondello said the team is highly motivated to remain atop the WNBA standings so they have homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. “We want to stay there because we’ve done all that hard work,” she said. “We defended much better in the second half.”
The win was an important start to a three-game West Coast road trip. Last Saturday, the Liberty suffered a 72–64 homecourt loss to the Connecticut Sun, ending New York’s eight-game winning streak. It was the first loss of the season to the Sun.
As the WNBA playoffs come into view—this season running later due to the Olympic break—two other teams, the Connecticut Sun and Minnesota Lynx, have secured their spots. The defending champion Las Vegas Aces and four-time champion Seattle Storm look likely to be the next locked in. The remaining three spots are up for grabs as every team has flashes of brilliance and moments of struggle.
The Liberty take on the Storm tomorrow in Seattle. The team then returns home and plays the Storm next Thursday at Barclays Center.
