Injuries, and as a result, unstable chemistry continue to plague the New York Liberty with just three games remaining in the regular season. A Tuesday night’s 66-58 road loss to the Golden State Valkyries, the Liberty were the WNBA’s No. 5 seed with a record of 24-17, 2 1/2 games behind the No. 4 seed Phoenix Mercury, No. 3 seed Atlanta Dream and No. 2 Las Vegas Aces, all 26-14. The Minnesota Lynx were 32-8 and clinched the No. 1 spot and home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
The postseason begins September 14 with the best-of-three opening round series. The WNBA semifinals are best-of-five and the finals best-of-seven. The top eight seeds in the 13-team league make the playoffs. The league will increase to 15 teams next season with the addition of the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire. The Valkyries, this season’s expansion team, has been the league’s biggest surprise, as they are No. 6 seed at 22-18 with four games left on their regular season schedule, setting the record for most wins in a season by a WNBA expansion team.
The Liberty are the reigning league champions and talented enough to make a deep run. But their head coach Sandy Brondello has discussed continuity, or the lack thereof, with so many moving parts this season due to injuries to their three best players. Forward Breanna Stewart and center Jonquel Jones have both missed 13 games, and All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu, the team’s leader in scoring (18.8) and assists (5.4), was out of the lineup on Tuesday for the fourth time in the Liberty’s last five games. Ionescu is nursing an injured left foot and injured big toe on her left foot.
Brondello has also had to balance finding the right fit for midseason acquisition and former WNBA Finals MVP (2019, Washington Mystics) Emma Meesseman, who debuted with the team on August 3 after playing in Europe for the past three years. Meesseman has been stellar, averaging 13.6 points and 5.3 rebounds in 13 games going prior to Tuesday.
Stewart, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time WNBA regular season and finals MVP, returned on August 25 from a bone bruise in her right knee after missing 13 straight games and had played only three games alongside Meesseman after Saturday’s 80-63 road loss to the Phoenix Mercury, a game in which Brondello started Jones, Meesseman, and Stewart together for the first time.
The Liberty face the Storm in Seattle tomorrow, play their regular season home finale at the Barclays Center next Tuesday against the Mystics, and close out the regular season on September 11 on the road versus the Chicago Sky.