BROOKLYN, NY—The Liberty weren’t able to recover from their 20 turnovers and allowed 22 points off their errors to hand the Minnesota Lynx an 83-71 victory on Sunday.
The Liberty held the lead at halftime and carried momentum into the first two minutes of the third quarter. They looked to put the game out of reach, but instead faltered. The Lynx outscored New York by 11 in the frame and completely flipped the energy.
“We had a good first half where we competed, we played defense, we got back, we moved the ball side to side, and then it was the tale of the second half for us, where we got staggered,” guard Natasha Cloud said. “They ran the ball back down at us in transition defense. We didn’t get back. We didn’t stop the ball early.”
Sabrina Ionescu got the ball rolling quickly with a jumper just 15 seconds into the game. Kayla McBride responded right away with a triple, and the teams traded buckets the rest of the first quarter.
Both New York and Minnesota attempted to set the pace by pushing the ball and finding open gaps in the defense. A majority of their focus seemed to be on getting points on the board rather than stopping their opponents from doing the same and the Liberty trailed 25-24 at the end of the first period.
The second quarter was much more defense-heavy, as both teams scored a combined 25 points in the frame.
New York looked to be taking the upper hand and started the quarter on an 8-1 run. Isabelle Harrison was crucial in the span, scoring five of the points and assisting on a Cloud three.
However, the Liberty’s offense went quiet from there, and they didn’t add any points for five minutes. Minnesota’s increased defensive efforts allowed it to tie the score at 32 with 3:23 left before halftime. Harrison broke the drought, and New York held onto the 38-36 lead at halftime after a monstrous block by Jonquel Jones.
“They disrupted all of us,” said head coach Sandy Brondello. “They were three-quarter-fronting, and they were denying it and blowing up action. They did a good job of getting through screens, they started switching. We were trying to pass it to the mismatch when we didn’t see the weak side rotations. We just got narrow focus.”
The Liberty scored the first six points of the third quarter, but couldn’t build on it. The Lynx were inching their way closer to taking the lead when Courtney Williams was subbed out of the game following her fourth foul with 5:23 left in the quarter. Despite Williams leading in points at the time, it wasn’t detrimental.
Cloud hit multiple big shots in the game, and finished the game with a team-high 14 points. One of her crucial makes was a triple to keep the 54-50 lead at the 3:59 mark of the third quarter. However, Minnesota got over the hump that was holding it back from asserting its dominance and scored 14 straight points, thanks to four triples.
The Lynx went 10-of-21 from three-point range in the game with four makes coming from McBride.
Natisha Hiedeman and DiJonai Carrington were huge coming off the bench for Minnesota. The duo took over Williams’ scoring production in the third quarter with nine and eight points in the frame, respectively.
The Liberty’s energy was nonexistent to start the final 10 minutes until they increased their defensive efforts. The spark didn’t last for long, though, and it seemed hopeless once the Lynx took their largest lead at 80-64 with 4:34 left to play. New York couldn’t take advantage of scoring opportunities, nor could it hold back Minnesota.
“I give Minnesota credit. We didn’t make them feel uncomfortable, and they made us feel really uncomfortable,” Brondello said.
