The Liberty rightly entered Game 1 of their WNBA semifinals matchup with the Atlanta Dream on Sunday, Oct. 4, with supreme confidence.
And why not?
They had knocked off the Minnesota Lynx 2-0 six days earlier in their best-of-three opening round series, becoming the league’s first ever No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed. But the No. 4 seeded Dream ended any consideration that the Liberty would make quick work of them. The Dream took the opening game in Atlanta 92-82 and put the Liberty in a seemingly must-win situation in Game 2 last night (Wednesday) in Atlanta.
The best-of-five series will move to the Barclays Center for Game 3 on Friday (7:30 p.m.). A win by the Liberty in Game 2 would ensure a Game 4 in Brooklyn on Sunday, Oct. 11 (2:00 p.m.). Game 5, if necessary, will be back in Atlanta at a time yet to be determined.
The Dream were without four-time All-Star Allisha Gray last night. Gray, who led Atlanta in scoring this season averaging 19.0 points per game, injured her hand in the second quarter in Sunday’s game and sat out for the remainder of that contest. Her status for the rest of the series is uncertain but her absence would be a major factor for head coach Karl Smesko’s team.
But the Liberty’s focus is on their own players. While forward Breanna Stewart, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time WNBA MVP, dominated Game 1 in the squad’s victory against the Minnesota Lynx, scoring 34 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, she scored 19 points with just two rebounds in Sunday’s loss.
Stewart played all 40 minutes of the last two Liberty games before last night, logging 38 minutes in Game 1 versus Minnesota. This is after she was named the MVP of last month’s FIBA Women’s World Cup, with the United States taking home the gold.
Is Stewart playing too many minutes?
“It is just going to depend on the rest days,” said Liberty first-year head coach Chris DeMarco ahead of Game 2. “It’s tricky sometimes. There is a rhythm to it. We are just going to continue to monitor it and make sure she’s good to go.”
Stewart, for her part, had her attention on Game 1.
“They did what they were supposed to do; they protected home court,” she said. “…The goal in the series, like everybody always says, is to steal one [road game], right? So, that is what we will try to do [in Game 2].
In Game 1, the Liberty underperformed on both ends of the court, turning the ball over 19 times and allowing both 5’6” point guard Jordin Canada (25 points and five steals) and reserve forward DeWanna Bonner (23 points and nine rebounds) to make up for the loss of Gray’s production.
