Down 2-0 in WNBA Finals, how can New York save its season?

LAS VEGAS — The New York Liberty prides itself on never going too high or too low. Coach Sandy Brondello “never hits the panic button,” Courtney Vandersloot told ESPN on Wednesday morning, a big reason why the Liberty hadn’t lost consecutive games all season before the season finale. WNBA, the point guard said.

Brondello wasn’t exactly hitting the panic button later in the day after his team’s 104-76 blowout loss in Game 2 to the Las Vegas Aces handed them a post-elimination loss. But his bewilderment and disappointment were clear in his post-match remarks to the media.

“We didn’t have any harshness.”

“It was all too easy.”

“We had no resistance… There was no resistance.”

“We have to be proud of playing better than we did.”

Brondello’s sentiments were echoed by players to his left and right, 2018 and 2023 MVP Breanna Stewart and 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones.

“We have to dig deeper,” Jones said.

“We have to look inside and understand,” added Stewart, a two-time WNBA champion whose losses in this series are her first in an NCAA and WNBA championship.

The Liberty will fight to maintain their championship aspirations Sunday when they host the game (3 p.m. ET, ABC) at Barclays Center. Teams that trail 0-2 in a best-of-five WNBA playoff series have never been able to overcome the deficit to win the series, and in Finals history, they have been swept in seven out of eight cases. .

The possibility of a sweep, by either team, seemed far-fetched a week ago. Las Vegas and New York split the regular season series 2-2, with the Liberty winning the Commissioner’s Cup championship game in August. The Aces swept the Chicago Sky in the first round and the Dallas Wings in the semifinals. New York had to pull off first-round wins against a Washington Mystics team that was much better than its No. 7 seed indicated, as well as a tough third-seeded Connecticut Sun team that inflicted a defeat on New York at home in the first match of the semi-finals.

The Liberty — which has three players with extensive Finals experience in Jones, Stewart and Vandersloot, their three big offseason additions — seemed to deepen their grit and chemistry in real time as the playoffs wore on. were unfolding. They bounced back from a 15-point loss to the Sun in Game 1 by beating them three straight times, including two on the road.

But the team that took the floor this week in Las Vegas looked like a shell of the one that beat the Aces three times in August, or the one that overcame a difficult road to the Finals.

“I know we’re a lot better than that. We need to prove to ourselves that we’re a better team than what we’ve shown the last two.”

Sandy Brondello, Liberty coach

Brondello, who is in his second year in New York after serving as head coach in San Antonio and with the Phoenix Mercury, recognized the way the defending champion Aces play. But she believes that her team was not up to par either.

“Vegas is playing their best basketball right now. They’re playing with all the confidence. You see the chemistry they have,” Brondello said of the differences between their August meetings and the final. “And for us, we didn’t take a step forward. We didn’t show it. We’re disappointed, very disappointed because we’re a much better team than what we showed.”

After allowing 99 points in the first game, including 72 to the Las Vegas guard trio, New York had to execute defensively, be more disruptive, to get back to transition defense in the second game. start Wednesday, falling behind 19-2 four minutes into the game. After a barrage of 3-pointers, the Aces scored a WNBA Finals record 38 points in the first quarter on 70% shooting (6 of 10 from beyond the arc).

Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum combined for 8-of-15 shooting from 3 and 47 total points, while A’ja Wilson couldn’t be denied, finishing with 26 points and 15 rebounds. The Aces became the first team in WNBA history to have three 20-point scorers multiple times in the Finals and to do so in consecutive playoff games.

Everything the Aces did seemed simple, systematic and fluid, the product of that core having played together for years and winning a championship together last season. Outside of when the Liberty was able to get the ball to Jones in the second quarter, it was the opposite for them.

Even in games where New York did a lot of good, things broke the Aces’ way. On one possession with about four minutes left in the first quarter, Vandersloot and Stewart almost got the ball back after knocking it away from Wilson, before Plum picks him up in the corner. Stewart and Vandersloot then appeared to stop her under the basket, but she kicked him out and the ball passed from Young to Wilson and then to Young, who drove and hit Alysha Clark in the corner. Clark then quickly relayed the message to Gray, who nailed a 3 against Vandersloot in the closing stretch as the shot clock expired.

“They do things very precisely,” Brondello said. “They know where they’re going to be, where they’re going to be open and who’s going to come out and extra checks. And the pace they played at really kept us going in circles.”

It wasn’t much better on the offensive end for New York, which shot worse from the floor (36.1%) and from 3 (22.9%) than in the first game. Vandersloot and Ionescu struggled once again on that end, combining for 19 points on 5-of-19 shooting (3-of-11 from 3) and currently sits at 8-of-25 on open shots in the series . Stewart only made six field goals, while – as in the first game – Jones was neutralized in the second half after a dominant second period. Even a more aggressive Betnijah Laney or a helpful Marine Johannes on the bench couldn’t save them.

“I think their defense has taken a step forward as well,” Brondello said. “Their physicality bothered us. We also need to be smarter where we need to make hard cuts, not just soft cuts, violent cuts to be able to actually attract people, put in better screens, just the little details to help us to open up to us.”

The Liberty will sit with the embarrassment of defeat – and the apprehension of being about to finish the season without a championship – for four days. Brondello said she wants them to be “unnerved by this effort” as they search for answers. She challenged them to fight, believing they can bounce back as the series heads east.

Who will bring the courage and tenacity that Brondello wants to see? Laney often sets the tone on the defensive end, and she hasn’t played spectacularly in these Finals, but it will take a team effort to slow down Las Vegas.

Liberty’s defense needs to find ways to make things more uncomfortable for the Aces’ guards, something they had more success with in August. There’s no way you’ll beat Las Vegas if its guards hit like they did, and that confidence is something they’ll surely bring to Brooklyn.

On the offensive end, can Stewart find her shot? Can Jones make an impact for the full 40 minutes and take advantage of the mismatches inside? Vandersloot and Ionescu need to do better defensively, but they also need to be factors offensively. The Liberty need to play through the paint, either getting the ball to Jones or getting their guards down, anything that could help open up the floor for perimeter players. Unlocking Johannes – perhaps even playing her more – could be essential in this effort.

For the second game in a row, Brondello noted that her team needed to set better screens and, on the other hand, not allow as many open shots — something that should be allowed in the WNBA Finals.

Even amid their deep disappointment Wednesday, the Liberty focused on what’s immediately in front of them: not overcoming an 0-2 deficit per se, but winning Game 3 on Sunday and playing the way they know they are capable.

“I know we’re a lot better than that,” Brondello said. “We have to prove to ourselves that we are a better team than what we have shown the last two.”