Turns out, the entire era of Liberty basketball might need a reset timeout.
A season that began with such high hopes of returning to the top of the WNBA ended in a semifinals sweep with an 85-83 Game 3 loss to the Dream on Friday night in front of a disappointed capacity crowd of 17,991 at Barclays Center.
If this was the last stand of this Liberty golden age — heralded by Breanna Stewart’s arrival in 2023 and notarized by a first championship in 2024 — they went down swinging.
“This is just a tough pill to swallow,” said Jonquel Jones, who posted game highs with 26 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks. “We know how talented we are, and every year is about being able to play for and ultimately win the championship. We fell short this year.”
Make that two years running. It was less the fact of a final-four finish than the texture of a team that repeatedly was sidetracked during the season — by injuries (to Sabrina Ionescu and marquee addition Satou Sabally), by departures (Betnijah Laney-Hamilton), by first-year head coach Chris DeMarco’s crash introduction to the league — and now will be another year removed from that trophy-raising high.
The Liberty finished with a 26-18 record that was only good for eighth place and a 2-3 mark in the postseason, where a stirring first-round triumph over the top-seeded Lynx quickly turned into a nightmare ouster by the Dream.
“You need to be consistent. I don’t think we were consistent,” Stewart said. “We started to show some life and peak a little bit toward the end and in the playoffs, but this is not like cramming for a test. You gotta be ready to go since the jump.”
The Liberty were outmuscled and out-quicked by an opponent with its own prime-aged stars (see: Angel Reese, Rhyne Howard) making its leap into the WNBA’s elite — where the Liberty were, circa three years ago.
Or where the Valkyries, another team cited in the aftermath as a matchup problem for the Liberty, now will join the Dream in the Finals.
An offseason of introspection and potentially seismic moves awaits a franchise with championship-or-bust standards.
“I believe in this locker room, and I believe in our roster and I do think we had enough,” DeMarco said.
Of course, DeMarco’s status might top the list of questions. He said he expects to return in 2027.
After a Game 2 loss that will be remembered for DeMarco and the Liberty bizarrely not using a reset timeout that was in their pocket before their final possession, Game 3 was a more straightforward kind of nail-biter.
The Liberty led 71-66 early in the fourth quarter then went more than five minutes without scoring during a 9-0 Dream run.
Trailing by two with 18 seconds left, the Liberty drew up a look for Stewart out of a timeout, but it didn’t go down.
“It’s really hard to win a WNBA championship, and I feel like because we did it, went [to the Finals] twice early on, it was almost like, ‘Oh, this is going to be an every year thing,’ ” Stewart said. “This s–t isn’t easy. And when you get there and you win, you can’t take it for granted.”
Stewart emptied the tank. After carrying the Liberty throughout the season with vintage two-way play that landed her in the top five of MVP voting and after piling up major minutes down the stretch, Stewart ran for 39:03. She scored 26 points (on 6-of-15 shooting) and added four rebounds and six assists.
Ionescu, the third member of the franchise’s vaunted Big 3 and a face of the operation since being drafted No. 1 overall in 2020, finished with 12 points on 4-of-12 shooting to cap a down season that she said was hampered “a lot” by a back injury.
“You don’t know what anything’s going to look like,” Ionescu said, “but obviously [I] like the group that we have. Us three poured our hearts into trying to make this work for this organization and this fanbase that showed up for us.”
