What New York Liberty Gaining From Veterans’ Title and Postseason Experience in WNBA Finals
What New York Liberty Gaining From Veterans’ Title and Postseason Experience in WNBA Finals
NEW YORK LIBERTY: — Courtney Vandersloot had no idea it would be so emotionally taxing. Or how much mental toughness the situation demanded. She couldn’t have known what it took to win a championship until she hoisted it with the Chicago Sky in 2021.
“It’s been talked about a lot how going into the playoffs is like starting a new season, but you really don’t understand it until you’re in it,” Vandersloot, a 12-year veteran, told media.
The New York Liberty roster was assembled with the goal of winning the championship in 2023 in mind. The two top free-agent acquisitions, Vandersloot and Breanna Stewart, have both won WNBA championships, as has reserve center Stefanie Dolson. Jonquel Jones, obtained in a trade with the Sun prior to free agency, has come close twice.
Betnijah Laney and Kayla Thornton each made the playoffs many times during the course of their seven-year careers, but never advanced past the first round.
And rookie contract-level players like Sabrina Ionescu, Jocelyn Willoughby, and Marine Johannès have only had a taste of the Liberty nearly upsetting the Sky in Game 3 of the first round last year. Nyara Sabally is a rookie, and Han Xu is unavailable due to an international engagement.
Current Position of New York Liberty
The team is currently three wins away from capturing a trophy together. The New York Liberty, the only original franchise to never win a championship, will open the 2023 WNBA Finals on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, ABC).
As the regular season came to an end, the players gathered for a meeting in which the veterans discussed what to anticipate in the postseason. They talked about what they had learned from their personal playoff experiences, both good and unsuccessful, and how they planned to approach the new season.
“This is like a roller coaster if your mental isn’t in a great place during the playoffs,” said Stewart, who has never missed the postseason in her seven-year career. “It’s going to be really difficult for you and that’s why we talked about staying together in all of this.”
All semifinals, head coach Sandy Brondello, who has been on both sides of a Finals conclusion, emphasized about mentality and mindset in pre- and postgame press conferences. Players emphasized the importance of being at the top of their games in all aspects throughout their meeting.
“You talk about the physical part of how hard the playoffs are, that you have to take it to another level physically [and] you have to be playing your best basketball,” Vandersloot stated. “But what’s not talked about enough is how mentally sharp — more sharp — you have to be and how emotionally draining it is.”
It came into play early for Vandersloot, who wants to set a good example by locking on, responding, and remaining confident.
The veteran point guard struggled with his shooting in Game 2 of the first-round series against the Washington Mystics. She said afterwards that she retained the mindset that if her team needed her to make one play, she’d be ready.
She scored twice in overtime to extend a one-point advantage to five, and the Liberty triumphed to avoid a winner-take-all game on the road. It would have taken place less than 48 hours before the first game of the semifinals.
Slot for Vandersloot
“Every game is important,” Dolson, who won the title with Vandersloot in 2021, told Yahoo Sports. “We all know how the playoffs are like their own season. We just make sure we keep harping on the notion that anything may happen and that we have to play every game as hard and as intensely as the last.”
The Liberty added All-Stars Vandersloot, Stewart, and Jones to a starting lineup that already included Laney and Ionescu. Both sides of the ball had an up-and-down season as they rediscovered their stride and harmony under second-year skipper Brondello.
They went 32-8 to secure the No. 2 seed, bringing the race for No. 1 all the way to the last day against the reigning champion Aces.
“We had a really good regular season,” Vandersloot remarked at the meeting, “but it doesn’t mean anything.”
The message was especially crucial given that their path to the Finals would take them past an almost-fully healed Mystics team that had caused them problems during the regular season. The Connecticut Sun, who were always playoff-ready, were a tough out in the semifinals and were one basket away from forcing a Game 5. The Liberty’s 4-0 regular-season record against Connecticut was essentially worthless.
“The things that you were doing in the regular season, they don’t necessarily translate,” Vandersloot stated. “You have to try something new. You must improve your performance. And this applies to all aspects.
So I just wanted to make sure that everyone recognized that there would be difficult times ahead. This will not be all fun and games. Hopefully, we’ll appreciate it at the end. But for the time being, it will be a grind, and we must be prepared for it.”
Vandersloot made her maiden playoff participation in her third season, and the Sky advanced to the 2014 Finals the following year, where they were swept by the Phoenix Mercury.
The point guard experienced six postseasons before to their championship season and understands the perilous nature of the playoffs. In the former single-elimination format, the Sky were eliminated in the second round by the Hamby Heave in 2019.
The purpose of the pre-postseason meeting was to teach players who had never been in that position how to recover. It was a foreshadowing of what happened in Game 1 of the semifinals, when the Sun trounced the Liberty on their home court at Barclays Center.
But that doesn’t have to carry over to the next game or even practice. It simply cannot.
“A difficult loss like that can change the course, but that’s why experience is so important, because there will be ups and downs throughout this process.” “It won’t be all highs,” Vandersloot predicted. “It’s all about reacting. It’s about going forward and staying mentally and emotionally sharp.”
How it Went In The Arena
The Liberty won Game 2 and then exploded for a 37-point first quarter in Game 3 at Mohegan Sun Arena to take a 2-1 series lead. In a much closer game against the Sun on Sunday, they traded leads late and did enough to win by a possession.
They get a full week off before the franchise’s first Finals appearance in two decades. New York traveled to three of the first four games and lost them all.
Jones has a similar story of near misses. She has previously visited this location. Twice. But the 2021 MVP walked away from both of those situations ringless, as well as a slew of other close calls.
“It’s just knowledge from a different perspective,” Jones explained to Yahoo Sports.
After missing the playoffs as a rookie in Curt Miller’s first season, the Sun advanced to the second round in six of her seven seasons in Connecticut. They were seven minutes away from earning the franchise’s first championship in 2019.
Instead, the Mystics won their first game. A year earlier, Connecticut led with two minutes remaining in a must-win Game 4, almost sending the Aces to a winner-take-all game.
“As a Sun player, we’d say, ‘Next year, we’ll be back,’ after you lost, but you just never know for sure,” Jones remarked before her late-game effort in Game 4 ended the Sun’s chances of returning to the Finals. “Teams evolve. Things shift. And, in the end, opportunities change.”
She intended to signal to the team that those opportunities must be capitalized on.
“[It’s] not the time to save anything for later,” Jones stated. “Because nothing is guaranteed.”
Brondello is aware of passing opportunities. Her first year as the Mercury’s head coach, and only her second in the WNBA, was a sweep of Vandersloot’s Sky in 2014. Under the earlier structure, her San Antonio Silver Stars were swept in a best-of-three conference semifinals.
Rule of History Rules
Following their championship, the Mercury advanced to the semi-finals four seasons in a row. In 2017, her Mercury knocked Jones’ Sun out of the second round to get to the semis.
In 2018, Phoenix was defeated in Game 5 of the NBA Finals by Stewart and the Seattle Storm. Stewart won her first title with the Storm, and she added a second in 2020 against the Aces.
Vandersloot and homecoming free agency Candace Parker effectively terminated the Mercury’s quest for the 2021 championship, bringing an end to Brondello’s Phoenix chapter. Brondello’s spouse, Liberty assistant coach Olaf Lange, was also on the Sky championship coaching team.
“It’s just reminding them this is going to be a dogfight and we have to be ready to come out [and] we can’t be complacent,” Brondello stated. “That requires a lot of mental focus as well as being physically ready to go out and execute at a high level.”
Hours before the final buzzer of Game 4, Brondello informed reporters that she only talked about championships on Day 1. Her focus throughout the season was on the day-to-day, game-to-game path of collectively improving. She never hid the fact that it would take time.
The regular season was a roller coaster in and of itself. Even single games were an up-and-down roller coaster. However, Liberty players could be heard whooping and cheering in jubilation Sunday in the bowels of Mohegan Sun Arena.
“These things aren’t simple. “And getting to the Finals isn’t easy,” Stewart explained. “I just want everyone to really enjoy it and embrace it and understand that this is the biggest moment of our entire season.”
They’ll enjoy it, turn the page, and reset their minds for the last round of games. Vandersloot is well aware that the postseason is only two-thirds of the way through.
