The shorthanded Liberty gave Seattle all they could handle, including an extra period, but another heartbreaking loss awaited.
SEATTLE-The New York Liberty reaped the benefits of working overtime on Friday night in the Pacific Northwest. Alas, none appeared on the scoreboard.
Missing four players for the second straight game, the Liberty gave the Seattle Storm a thunderous fight but couldn’t overcome a deadly foul discrepancy in a 79-71 overtime loss at Climate Pledge Arena. Stabilized by a combined 52 points from Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd, the equally deprived Storm took advantage of 27 trips to the foul line compared to only 14 for the Liberty.
Cursed victories in both the foul (27-15) and turnover (21-11) battles doomed the Liberty (1-6) to their sixth straight loss. Three players fouled out over the course of the latter stages, including Natasha Howard, she of 19 points and nine rebounds in defeat. There we no changes from the Liberty’s prior injury report, which featured Betnijah Laney, DiDi Richards, Jocelyn Willoughby, and Lorela Cubaj for the second straight game.
“We’re not executing we’re just turning the ball over and we need to execute because we’re not built with players like a Breanna Stewart and a Jewell Loyd,” head coach Sandy Brondello said. “I liked our fight to get back in the game, but we came out, we didn’t execute what we needed to and that’s off the board and we got to be better at that. We can’t just say It’s because we’re young.”
Seattle (4-3) was likewise missing four players, their own absences headlined by Sue Bird and Ezi Macbegor. They took advantage of the beleaguered Liberty by jumping out to a lead that reached as high 16 in the third quarter but fought their way back into the game with a strong defensive effort and through a rediscovery of their deep game.
After sinking 5-of-9 from three-point range in the third quarter, the Liberty trimmed a 10-point halftime deficit to one and later worked their way into a fifth period when they closed regulation with five points from Bec Allen on their final two possessions. Stewart and Loyd also had to work for their sterling outputs, their united 52 coming on 14-of-41 shooting from the field.
But Howard fouled out early in the extra session, setting the pace for further disappointment. The departure of the Liberty’s top performer was perhaps a perfectly macabre way to define Friday’s contest.
“You still play your game. You still defend the way you defend and make sure it doesn’t get in your head that I got three, four, or five fouls,” Howard said of the search to balance physicality and fouling. “Your team’s going have your back. I wasn’t really concerned about fouls or anything like that. I’m still playing aggressive and being the player that I am on defense.”
Like their more recent loss, an 84-78 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday, the Liberty conjured a few positives that made it apparent that the new group is finding chemistry. Sami Whitcomb’s shooting struggles continued but she inched toward triple-double territory with eight rebounds, assists, and points each, breaking out of her slump with a pair of clutch triples during the Liberty’s comeback in the third. Three more New Yorkers reached double-figures with Howard, as Allen and Stef Dolson had 11 each while Han Xu tied her career-best with 12, scoring at least 10 points for the fourth straight game.
Alas, the lack of discipline and fundamentals kept a sour aura over the positive developments. Stewart earned nearly half of her points from the foul line (sinking 15-of-18 compared to a 7-of-19 outing from the field), thus not even affording the Liberty a chance to relish in their relative shutdown of one of the league’s most prominent faces.
“It’s still not good enough, because we fouled them. At the end of the day, that’s points for them,” Whitcomb said of the defense, particularly on Stewart. “We, on maybe half of the possessions, did a good job but the other half we absolutely bailed them out or play right into their hands in terms of fouling them. So, yes, there are things we can look at from that, but I would say we did not do a good job.”
“It’s just discipline where we’re just poking at the ball, and we got a lot of them to be quite honest,” Brondello said of the Liberty’s issues with fouling. “We’re working on it. We’re talking about it, and now we just got to put it into action a little bit better. I think (Stewart) knows how to initiate those calls too, but, for us, it’s just about getting a little bit more discipline.”
New York won’t have long to wait for another shot at the Storm, as they’re sticking around in Seattle for a Sunday evening contest (6 p.m. ET, YES).
Main Image: Joshua Huston/NBAE via Getty Images
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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