Quick Three: Liberty 81 Sky 67
Chicago drops weekend and season series to Liberty as league leaders flex their championship-winning ceiling once again.
The Liberty were without the reigning MVP Breanna Stewart (plus high-end starter Betnijah Laney-Hamilton) on Sunday but reinforced their position as one of the shortlist contenders to win the WNBA title with an impressive win at Wintrust Arena. The Sky, after falling to 9-14, remain just ahead of the chasing pack in the race for the final playoff spot but struggled to string together strong offensive stretches after a solid start where they scored 34 points in the game’s opening 15 minutes. With a trip to face the defending champion Aces on the way Tuesday before the Olympic break, let’s dive into what went wrong for Teresa Weatherspoon and company in today’s defeat.
1. Liberty close the door to the paint.
After giving up 56 paint points on Thursday, the Liberty put a clear emphasis on protecting the lane in their defensive strategy for today’s rematch. The result was the Liberty outscoring the Sky in the paint (36-34) and forcing Chicago to shoot their way to a victory—something that won’t happen often. The Sky, led by Marina Mabrey (21 pts, 4/7 3PT), valiantly tried to match the long-range exploits of the Liberty but ultimately came up short (33-21 NY edge in 3PT scoring). With the size of New York (who had 4 or more 5’11”+ foot players on court at all times) making it difficult for Chicago’s perimeter players to get downhill into the paint, the only avenue to maintain the strong inside scoring was via Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso who shot only 6/21 with Jonquel Jones again showing her oft-underrated abilities as a rim-protector (3 blocks) and Kennedy Burke and Kayla Thornton doing a fantastic job of covering for Stewart’s absence.
With the Liberty taking away Chicago’s best avenue to offense by crowding the paint and denying entry off the bounce, the odds of putting together an explosive offensive relied heavily on Chicago’s defense creating scoring opportunities in transition. Whether because of great game management by New York or a lack of defensive pressure by the Sky, Chicago scored their fewest points off of turnovers (2) in any game this season as New York, who already commit their third fewest turnovers on average (12.3 per game), matched their season low with only 5 giveaways. The Sky didn’t play bad defense by any means (NY slashed only 42/30/71), but the inability to create offense from their defense makes winning games against teams of this level very difficult for this Sky group. To summarize, New York—even without, perhaps, their best player (I think Jones would like a word)—managed to win the battle of Thursday-to-Saturday adjustments. At the same time, there’s little Weatherspoon could do much differently. She’ll no doubt have a word about her team’s up-and-down energy in this game, but their personnel limitations at the offensive end were just as crucial in the offense having its second lowest scoring total of the season.
2. Onyenwere flashes rotational potential (again).
After a solid opening quarter, Chicago scored 13 points in the opening 5 minutes of the second quarter before going scoreless as New York stormed to a 9-point halftime lead. While the slow finish to the second quarter set the table for the Liberty to go on and win the game, the fast start to the second produced some of the Sky’s most impressive offensive basketball of the season—with Michaela Onyenwere scoring 8 of the team’s 13 points. She hit the shots that came her way, showcased her ability to find the spots where she’s comfortable scoring and, to the surprise of no one, added important energy at the defensive end. Once again, what’s on tape is pretty clear: Onyenwere (9.3 MPG) needs a bigger role in the Sky rotation. I’ve seen some say that “we don’t know what happens in practice,” and that’s obviously true. However, Onyenwere is a high-energy player in game (see her dive to snatch a loose ball from Jonquel Jones as an example), and that type of player isn’t one I’d expect to struggle for energy in practice.
At the same time, Onyenwere’s attitude and energy—even when on the bench for full games—has remained highly positive. Thus, the only attribution I can find for why she doesn’t play more is Teresa Weatherspoon’s preference towards the three-guard line-ups. And while those line-ups have produced clear advantages at times this season, it’s clear that momentum is building towards tweaking the rotation marginally. Because each of Evans, Carter and Allen have experience off of the bench, there’s still plenty of opportunity to work in three-guard line-ups in the course of a game, and it’s also possible to start the three guards and make Onyenwere one of the first players off the bench. Regardless of how it happens, it’s a change that needs to. If Onyenwere can’t capitalize on a bigger role and her play falls off, then a further adjustment will be needed, but the on-court evidence right now only supports an increase in playing time—especially given the strong shooting (42% 3PT) and unique traits she can offer.
3. Focus on (questionable) officiating gets the best of Sky.
Let me start by saying the officiating in today’s game was not good. There were questionable calls for and against both teams, but if one team got the worst of it, it was probably Chicago. At the same time, I watched one of the officials in the game today (personally not a fan of mentioning names—feels weird) make a number of mistakes just last week in an Olympic qualifier between Slovenia and New Zealand halfway across the world. In other words, the standard of officials is not great all over the world. I regularly hear people say that “the standard of referees in the WNBA is so bad.” Or that, “the NBA referees suck.” Even that “the EuroLeague officials aren’t good enough.” If you’re catching my drift, there’s no country or league in the world that’s satisfied with their officiating. In some games like today’s, it’s not just bad—it’s inconsistent. And I think that’s where it grinds the gears of players and coaches most.
This crew oscillated between calling the game super tight and letting a lot of contact go and the Sky, by virtue of the three technical fouls they picked up, certainly felt like they got the worst of it. If you’ve been following the Sky’s movements on social media and comments in press conferences as of late, it’s no secret that the lack of calls in their favor has been a mounting frustration for a number of players. Yet, the remonstrations with the officials today didn’t help the Sky’s larger mission—which was to win the game. The frustration was, at times, a clear distraction and is something that’s tough to manage when so many players are all feeling the same way. In that respect, I think Weatherspoon can help her players by offering to take on the majority of the arguing efforts. Some players may feel they need to argue because their coach is a more reserved person and may not go to bat for them, but Spoon is definitely not from that mold. As she showed today, she’ll speak up for her team, and it’s easier for her to compartmentalize those emotions and get on with the game because she’s more experienced and detached from the actual play.