CHICAGO — Liberty center Jonquel Jones exited Tuesday’s 93-86 loss to the Chicago Sky with a left ankle injury and never returned.
Jones appeared to know something was wrong the moment she hit the ground.
She pulled her left leg up to her body and held her ankle, grimacing in pain. She eventually was helped onto her feet, limped off the floor and headed toward the locker room with 3:31 left in the first quarter.
The team initially said she was “questionable” to return during the second quarter.
But Jones didn’t join the team on the floor after halftime, and a team spokesperson confirmed shortly after that Jones was ruled out.
Coach Chris DeMarco didn’t have an immediate update on Jones following the game.
“She’s just going to be evaluated in the coming days,” he said.
The Liberty have been hit badly by injuries this season. They’ve played just two complete games at full strength.
New York has been without Satou Sabally since late June and Leonie Fiebich since early July. Sabrina Ionescu and Marine Johannès, both healthy Tuesday, have also missed games this season with injuries.
“It’s tough,” Breanna Stewart said. “Obviously, we hope JJ will be back quickly but honestly I think Han (Xu) stepped up to the challenge pretty well. … As a team … we’ve been through this far too many times and our response needs to be better. When one person goes down, we need to just be even better and next-one-up mentality.”
Stewart set another record.
She entered Tuesday needing only 14 points to reach 3,000 with the Liberty.
She finished with 22 points, making her the fastest player in WNBA history to score 3,000 points with a single franchise.
Stewart accomplished that feat in 145 games, edging out Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale, who reached that milestone in 150 games.
“It’s definitely tough with the loss, but I’ve really enjoyed playing in New York and representing the Liberty,” Stewart said. “And I wanted to be able to kind of do all these things with (Ionescu), JJ, my teammates around me. So it’s a cool thing. It would have been cooler if we would have won.”
