The shot, Leonie Fiebich and Sabrina Ionescu said, was “lucky.”
But with the final seconds draining away and Stephanie Talbot surrounding Rickea Jackson on the right block, Jackson still managed to flip the ball — almost underhand, with her back turned to the basket — into the net as the horn sounded.
So a night when the Liberty lost star Breanna Stewart to a lower leg injury early in the first quarter, trailed by as many as 15 points and still mounted a fourth-quarter comeback to eventually tie the game, ended in heartbreak.
Their five-game winning streak, with a four-game road trip up next, was snapped during a crushing 101-99 loss to Los Angeles, when early defensive woes and costly turnovers and too many rebounding lapses caught up to the Liberty (17-7) in one final moment of chaos — when Talbot, on the court for the final 23 seconds despite only getting signed Monday, did everything she could to not foul Jackson (24 points) and then watched as the Sparks began to celebrate anyway.
“I feel like today you could see that we were almost there but not really,” Fiebich said, “and then they got an easy shot or their dump-down to the posts. Normally we’re there, and today we were just a second too late.”
Head coach Sandy Brondello didn’t have any update on Stewart postgame, including when asked what her specific injury was, and said, “Hopefully, she’ll be OK.”
Stewart, averaging 19.0 points per game this season while again serving as the focal point for everything that happens offensively and defensively for the Liberty, waved her hand toward the bench with 6:38 left in the opening quarter and started hobbling after jogging down the court in transition. Brondello called timeout and replaced Stewart, who then exited down the tunnel.
She had remained a constant in the lineup despite Ionescu, Jonquel Jones Nyara Sabally, Natasha Cloud and Isabelle Harrison all missing at least a game due to injury, in addition to Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who’s out for the year.
Jones just returned Monday, and Sabally (rest) missed a third consecutive game as the Liberty continued to play it safe with discomfort that flared up following the All-Star break. Kennedy Burke only played six minutes after dealing with cramping. Fiebich had her hand wrapped after injuring it Friday, too.
And without Stewart, the Liberty needed to adjust on the fly. The Liberty allowed the Sparks to shoot 51 percent from the field and 40 percent from 3.
They surrendered 35 points in the opening quarter. Defensive mistakes — on pick-and-roll defense, on rotations, everything — stacked together, and they were forced to use 10 rotation players, including Talbot, Harrison and Rebekah Gardner.
“I mean, I think we have a lot of pieces that can come in and help us in terms of like practicing those rotations and different stuff like that,” Jones said. “But I think it’s just tough when you go against a team that just has the size that LA had tonight, and you saw it in terms of them being able to get on the glass and posting us up and really just taking advantage of like me just going to help other people and then they just dish it off to my person.”
Still, the Liberty found a way to eventually mount a comeback, using Ionescu’s 30 points, Cloud’s 22 and Jones’ 14. A 13-point deficit at halftime had been trimmed to five.
It took until the 2:18 mark of the fourth, but Ionescu — who scored 17 points in the first half but was largely held in check until midway through the fourth — finally tied the game at 95 with an and-one. She tied it again with 23 seconds left on another jumper.
Cloud also hit a pair of 3s down the stretch in the fourth, and she finished with three or more makes from beyond the arc for just the third time this season and fell one point short of matching her season-high.
But in the end, in the final moments that followed three late ties, Jackson found enough of a window to fling the ball toward the basket.
And a night that started as difficult after Stewart exited — with the Liberty able to claw back but never able to take a lead for good — turned crushing.
“It was huge to just be able to see the resiliency of this group,” Ionescu said. “… It sucks. It hurts in the moment but also it’s one of those things you live with and just move on and try and not let it happen again.”
