Game Preview: Sky Continue Campaign in Commissioner's Cup against Liberty
New York, who Chicago beat less than two weeks ago, visits Wintrust Arena after beating the Fever in their Cup opener on Sunday night.
The Sky’s busy stretch of games continues with their sixth game in thirteen nights at home against the New York Liberty on Tuesday. This game, which serves as the second of Chicago’s five Commissioner’s Cup group stage games, is also as a rematch between two teams that have already met twice in 2024—with the Sky winning the previous preseason and regular season match-up. For a veteran, championship contender like New York, back-to-back losses against any team are not taken lightly and it should come as no surprise that only Las Vegas (who won three straight over New York after last summer’s Cup final loss) have managed to beat this current Liberty core in consecutive meetings. In other words, the Sky—despite their favorable track record against the Liberty in the opening month of the season—will need to bring their best game if they hope to stop New York from exacting revenge. Let’s dive into my preview of how the Sky can make it two straight regular season wins over last season’s finalists.
Matchup to Watch: Sky Guards vs. NY’s Perimeter Defense
If you cast your mind back to the Sky’s win over the Liberty in the preseason, it’s likely that you’ll remember the Sky having a lot of success attacking New York’s perimeter players—especially Sabrina Ionescu—off the dribble.
In the teams’ second meeting (this time in the regular season), it took Chicago a lot longer to take advantage of that mismatch for a number of reasons—some of which figure to be a factor again on Tuesday:
Less Three Guards Line-ups. The Sky started Michaela Onyenwere in the May 23rd meeting and may do so again if Diamond DeShields misses her second straight. That said, it’s unlikely Onyenwere will get 27 minutes again this time. Compared to guards like Chennedy Carter and Dana Evans, Onyenwere doesn’t have nearly as big of a speed advantage on Ionescu.
Match-Ups. Even when the Sky did run three-guard line-ups for the first three quarters of the game at Barclays, New York did a good job of keeping Ionescu away from Evans and Carter both by ‘hiding’ her on other players and by staggering many of her and Courtney Vandersloot’s minutes to allow extra backline coverage behind whoever was stuck on the Sky’s speedsters.
Less Aggressive Mentality for Chicago. All of the Chicago guards looked a little less aggressive early in this game (which could be for any number of intentional or unintentional reasons). Carter, in particular, looked happy to settle for the mid-range looks she was getting. In the games since, she’s continued to become more and more aggressive and will likely take Ionescu and Vandersloot all the way to the basket every time she can.
In the end, the Sky did eventually exploit this advantage late in the regular season meeting as well. More three guard line-ups from the Sky and the Liberty running with their starters late in the game meant that it was virtually impossible to keep both Ionescu and Vandersloot away from Evans. Late in the game, Weatherspoon leaned on Lindsay Allen more heavily than Carter but the veteran was also able to exploit Ionescu despite lacking the top-end speed of Evans and Carter. The Sky went so far as to clear out on consecutive possessions at a key juncture late in the game to get Ionescu on an island. Breanna Stewart, unsurprisingly, recognized when the Sky went to the set a second consecutive time (0:23 below) and stepped up to prevent a free path to the basket but allowed Reese to slip behind for a key offensive rebound in the process. Though Ionescu—to her credit—didn’t quit and showed she could survive and get a stop when left on that island (0:45), the Sky will still likely go to this look at least a handful of times in Tuesday’s game because of the advantages it creates.
I’d also expect to see Carter, not Allen, in the closing line-up after her standout performance on Saturday—with her extra speed compared to Allen allowing Chicago to exploit the mismatches with both Ionescu and Vandersloot even more. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the Sky should start with Carter on the floor if DeShields has to miss another game. Onyenwere provided great value for the Sky at the 3 in the previous meeting—and played key minutes at the 4 late—but I’d argue Teresa Weatherspoon should lean into the advantage Chicago clearly found in these two previous meetings early and try to get Sandy Brondello to react with a change to her line-up. Of course, if DeShields can play, she provides a best of both worlds scenario by allowing the Sky to maintain their size (like with Onyenwere) to disrupt Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton while still having a third aggressive perimeter player (like Carter) on the floor.
Numbers Game: Jonquel Jones’ Foul Count
While Jones “struggled” to a -20 plus-minus in the previous meeting between these two teams, her back-up Nyara Sabally was a team-best +13 in a game New York lost by 9. The difference between their impact in that game seemed to be the extra element of dynamism Sabally added to the offense in her minutes. In Sabally’s 19 minutes, New York played to a 151 offensive rating while that fell to just 62 in Jones’ time on the court. The German may have used her athleticism well and, perhaps, caught the Sky a bit off guard (after all, she averaged just 7.9 minutes per game a season ago), but it was the shackles that Jones’ foul issues put on her offensive game that helped create the gap in offensive efficiency. By picking up her second less than three minutes into the game, each subsequent return to the floor for Jones was hampered by the struggle to stay on the floor.
And for a player like Jones who uses (controlled and perfectly legal) aggression to impose themself on offense, playing the majority of the game in foul trouble (and the final 7 minutes on 5) changes everything. Against a smart, veteran defender like Elizabeth Williams, the task is even more difficult. Luckily for the Sky, they’ll be better prepared to limit Sabally in the event Jones ends up in foul trouble again. Unluckily, the entire context of the game looks different for the Sky if Jones—the league’s best center—plays thirty minutes at full speed. Beyond the extra scoring she adds inside, Jones’ presence forces more Chicago bodies towards the paint—creating more open looks for New York’s talented shooters (who shot a solid 8/22 in the previous meeting but can easily improve). One ace up Weatherspoon’s sleeve is Kamilla Cardoso. The Brazilian performed well against Aliyah Boston on Saturday and, if nothing else, provides the Sky plenty of size (and six additional fouls) to throw Jones’ way.
Sky-Zone: Michaela Onyenwere’s Role
After playing 18 minutes per game including a season-high with DeShields out in the last New York game, Michaela Onyenwere has played just 7 minutes per game in the three games since Isabelle Harrison returned. And while she has seen some time at the four, Onyenwere’s primary role still appears to be at the three (where she started on Saturday)—meaning her competition is more with the Sky’s three-guard line-ups than with Harrison or any of Chicago’s other bigs. And while it’s obvious those guard-heavy looks provide advantages, I couldn’t help but feel like a few extra Onyenwere minutes could’ve given the Sky a much needed offensive change of pace as they struggled through parts of the third and early fourth on Saturday.
Of course, rotations are an imperfect science and, with both Harrison and Cardoso representing recent high-value additions, Weatherspoon has a lot to consider at the moment. Yet, I think relying on the three guard line-ups (as DeShields is, in theory, a guard) for upwards of thirty-minutes per game leaves some important value that only Onyenwere can provide on the table. The tricky part, for both player and coach, is that Onyenwere has had her best offensive performance this season when she got a higher volume of shots. With the way the rotation is currently trending, it’s looking less and less likely that she’s going to consistently get those shots—meaning a lack of rhythm could become a recurring issue. In any case, her size, energy and ability to shoot the three at a semi-reliable clip (4/10 this season) means she provides a lot of things that add value for the Sky. Finding a role for Onyenwere that extracts at least a part of that value while also allowing Weatherspoon’s favored three-guard line-ups to continue thriving could wind up as one of the big rotational challenges of the coach’s debut season.