Liberty 100, Sun 52: First round knockout

There were a lot of things that had to happen for the Sun to upset the Liberty Sunday afternoon. Absolutely none of them did, of course, and the final was a hard to look at 100-52 that actually could have been worse if you watched all the way through.


It was a Mike Tyson in his prime first-round knockout, with the Liberty hitting everything in sight, finishing 19-for-32 from three-point range, 12-for-19 in the first half, including a ridiculous Sabrina Ionescu three, contested and off-balance, at the buzzer.


What else can you do but tip your proverbial cap and move on? You shouldn’t feel as bad about the defense as it did when it gave up 109 earlier this week to Dallas. The offense was indeed lifeless and there are plenty of things to work on going forward, but if you read the preview, you know New York entered Sunday with the best defense in the WNBA as well, so it shouldn’t have been surprising it was hard to get good looks (and the Sun missed a lot of shots as well).


It’s on Meziane and his staff to try to regroup the team again, and this time they’ll have five days to do it before hosting a pretty hot Atlanta team Friday night. But this would have been much uglier had Connecticut not won on Friday and they were 0-7. Nothing to do but forget it and move on. 


What else did we learn from a statistical nightmare of a game for a lot of players?:




 

  1. The Liberty are clear WNBA favorite for now - If it weren’t the Sun on the opposing end of it, it was a gorgeous offensive effort to watch, full of transition three-pointers (just like you see in the MNBA these days) and shot making. Once Connecticut got behind early, it gave the Liberty the green light to bomb away and they made everything. As mentioned in the preview, Jonquel Jones creates such a matchup problem and disorients everything defensively. You add in the shotmakers around her, and on a day like Sunday, it’s an impossible task.

  2. It could have been worse - The third quarter ended with the Liberty up 90-36 and the announcers talking about point differential being a tiebreaker for the Commissioner’s Cup, and who knows what the final could have ended up? Thankfully, New York finally let off the gas and the Sun got some decent minutes from the end of their bench. Speaking of…

  3. The rookies got some valuable minutes -  Rayah Marshall somehow finished +9 in a game where her team lost by 48 points, and I still think she has potential to play a long time in the WNBA. And Aneesah Morrow scored eight points (only two below the team lead) in 15 minutes, Morrow has been good statistically in the minutes she has gotten, so maybe she’ll get some minutes with the game on the line soon?


Player of the game:  Jacy Sheldon - Tough to find someone in this game, but Sheldon came off the bench to score a team-high 10 points on 4-for-7 shooting. She continued to work hard even when the game was way out of hand..


Inside the numbers : -55 -  Marina Mabrey’s +/- for the contest, which may or may not be an WNBA record, I don’t think I want to know and let’s never speak of it again.


Under the radar: I’m not sure if Jonquel Jones needed to initiate Kariata Diaby to the WNBA or something, but Jones went right at her when she came in at the end of the third quarter. The referees didn’t call the first five or six bumps, but then finally got Jones for a foul eventually as Diaby pleaded to the officials to see what was going on. A little strange.


Quotable:  


Next up: Friday vs. Atlanta, 7:30 p.m.

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