The New York Liberty jumped out to a hot start, winning nine straight games, but have gone just 2-5 since. Part of the recent troubles is due to the offensive slump the reigning champions are going through.
New York still leads the WNBA in most points per game with 87.6, but its average has dipped. The Liberty were putting up 90.4 points per contest while undefeated, but averaged 83 points during the four-game road streak, where they took the victory just once.
This drought can be explained in part by key players who have missed games, specifically Leonie Fiebich, Jonquel Jones, and Sabrina Ionescu.
Fiebich played in the first nine games of the season before briefly stepping away from Barclays Center to play for the German national team in EuroBasket. The forward averaged 6.7 points per game on 53.8% shooting from the field and 48% shooting from three-point range.
Fiebich scored double figures in back-to-back games on May 30 and June 1, scoring 12 and 13 points, respectively. Her presence has been missed on both ends of the floor, but she was reactivated following the conclusion of EuroBasket and will be available for Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks.
Jones exited the game early with an ankle injury against the Washington Mystics on June 5, and experienced the same setback on June 19 against the Phoenix Mercury. She only missed two games after the first ankle tweak but is now expected to miss four to six weeks with a sprained right ankle.
The 2024 Finals MVP is crucial to the Liberty’s roster. She averages 12.1 points (14.9 excluding the two games she got injured in) on 47.5% field goal shooting and 43.8% three-point shooting, and adds 2.3 assists. The only two games Jones has scored less than 10 points have been her early exits.
Ionescu is typically leaned on to be first or second on the team in points and create offensive opportunities for her teammates. While she’s still doing that, she hasn’t been her usual self after missing the game against the Seattle Storm on June 22 with a neck injury.
Prior to Ionescu’s injury, she was knocking down 43.4% of her shots from the field to average 20.4 points per game. In the three games since, she’s made just 22.9% of her attempts to tally 11.3 points.
The efforts to get New York through this hump have been led by Breanna Stewart and Natasha Cloud.
Stewart has been consistent all season and is leading the team with 20.8 points per game on 50.9% efficiency. Her dependability is key, but the offensive burden can’t all fall on her.
Cloud has stepped up recently and recorded 20 and 14 points in the last two games, respectively, her most since May 24. She has also taken the role of dishing out the ball and surpassed Ionescu as assist leader with 6.5 per contest.
The Liberty have been getting surges from the bench, but it hasn’t been consistent or frequent enough to impact the outcomes of games.
Nyara Sabally has been thrown in the starting lineup recently without the veteran bigs and has produced mixed scoring outcomes. She contributed a career-high 16 points against the Mercury on June 27 but didn’t score against the Atlanta Dream two days later.
Another helping hand in the frontcourt has been Kennedy Burke. She averages nine points per game but has seemed to find a rhythm recently, tallying 11, 10, and 20 points in the last three games.
The guard reserves have also increased their outputs. Marine Johannes and Isabelle Harrison have added more points to the scoreboard than their averages would have expected in recent games.
The help from the bench has been crucial, and the return of Fiebich is expected to be beneficial for the Liberty, but they still need to find a way to create more offensive opportunities without Jones and with Ionescu’s performance at a decrease.
