The afternoon following the eighth-seeded Liberty’s historic sweep of the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx, Liberty co-owner Joe Tsai took to social media with a brazen declaration.
“Seeding doesn’t matter,” Tsai posted to X Wednesday. “We’re the best team in the playoffs.”
In front of their home crowd, the Liberty made history on the Barclays Center court, becoming the only No. 8 seed to topple the No. 1 team and proving naysayers wrong.
The Liberty walked into this series against the Lynx as underdogs and went on to eliminate the league’s best team this season in two games.
The Libs, led by their big three, looked for two games like the team projected in the preseason to seriously contend for the WNBA title.
The Liberty believed they could survive whatever the playoffs threw at them. Then, they proved it during a best-of-three series.
“We’re all learning and growing together,” Rebecca Allen said after the Liberty’s series-clinching win.
Now, they get ready for a best-of-five WNBA semifinal against the fourth-seeded Atlanta Dream, who ousted the No. 5 Washington Mystics in two games.
The Liberty appear to be a team finally starting to understand who it is after grinding through an uninspiring regular season. They put together two inspiring performances that led to a stunning first-round upset.
Very few picked the Liberty to actually do it — not that the team gave weight to what those outside the locker room were saying.
“I don’t really care personally because I know how good of a team we are, where we can be, where we can go,” Leonie Fiebich said. “We have a goal and it’s pretty clear that we’re all locked in and we’re ready to go.”
The Liberty’s statistical profile didn’t pop off the page in the regular season. They finished sixth in offensive rating, seventh in defensive rating and seventh in net rating and finished with one fewer win than a year ago.
But New York overwhelmed the Lynx when the stage lights turned on.
The Liberty held the Lynx to 75 and 71 points in Games 1 and 2, respectively. They outscored Minnesota in the paint 74-50.
The Liberty’s game plan to fluster Rookie of the Year winner Olivia Miles worked.
Stewart was a wrecking ball in Game 1, finishing with 34 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, two blocks and two steals.
In Game 2, Jonquel Jones took over inside and Sabrina Ionescu rediscovered her flow while Stewart looked on brand.
Suddenly the team that spent much of the regular season looking like it was searching for itself looked like it had found itself at exactly the right time.
“When you have that three-headed monster coming at you, obviously, it’s really tough,” Stewart said. “And setting that tone every night is something that’s important going forward because it’s the playoffs.”
Amid a tightly contested playoff field, the Liberty look far more stable now than they did entering the postseason.
An established championship trio — featuring Stewart’s versatility, Jones’ interior presence and Ionescu’s shot-making and creativity — gives the Liberty an advantage on most teams. They have wings who can score and defend. New York’s bench is capable of holding a lead when the starters sit, and first-year coach Chris DeMarco and his staff are figuring out what works.
“We are an eight seed even though we don’t feel like it and we need to be that,” Stewart said. “We have to have that chip on our shoulder and … the chip of winning, wanting to win a championship changes to being people thinking that they’re gonna be able to just do whatever they want to us … so I think having that mindset and mentality is great going forward.”
