ATLANTA — The Liberty’s road game against the Atlanta Dream on Thursday may be their biggest challenge of the season yet.
The Dream have three presumed All-Stars in their starting lineup.
Allisha Gray is one of the league’s most electric scorers, averaging a team-high 19.1 points. Rhyne Howard is an elite two-way wing. And Angel Reese is a double-double machine who’s thrived in Atlanta after being traded out of Chicago.
Over the past two weeks, the Liberty have started to look like the team many believed they would be.
New York has rattled off five consecutive wins and sits atop the Commissioner’s Cup standings for the East. The defense has improved as the group continues to build chemistry.
But coach Chris DeMarco views the Dream as a “good test” for New York.
“It’s a team that really knows their roles,” he said after practice Wednesday. “They do a really good job of playing together.”
The Liberty have their work cut out for them.
The Dream weaponize transition offense and punish opponents for the smallest mistakes, whether it be a missed shot or an ill-advised pass.
The Dream attack with purpose. Every defensive rebound becomes a potential fast-break opportunity. Every turnover becomes a chance for Atlanta to score before defenses can get set.
The Dream lead the league in rebound rate and are second in the league in fast-break points, averaging 11.2 per game. They’re also second in points off opponent turnovers, recording 18 per game.
The Liberty average the fewest fast-break points per game in the league. But they haven’t faced a team quite as good in the open court as the Dream.
The Liberty’s offense has to help their defense.
“That’s gonna be huge for us,” Jonquel Jones said. “[Transition offense is] where they really thrive, and so we just got to understand that they’re a team that’s gonna get out really quickly, we gotta build a wall. We gotta get back in transition, and we also gotta take good shots to not allow them to really get that kind of momentum offensively.”
The Liberty have proven they can win ugly, including Monday in Connecticut. But Thursday’s game is going to come down to discipline and attention to detail.
The Dream tend to have slow starts. In fact, they average the second-fewest first-quarter points in the league.
But Atlanta is the league’s best fourth-quarter team, outscoring opponents by 87 in the final 10 minutes of regulation.
The Liberty have talked all season about wanting to be the aggressors rather than the victim. But too many times New York has had to flip the switch and up the intensity in the second half to win.
That can’t happen Thursday.
The Liberty must impose themselves on the Dream from the jump.
“If we can come out and really kind of give ourselves a little cushion and really set the tone, I think they’re a team that you have to really set the tone against,” Jones said.
“If you start off slow, it’s gonna be a long night, so I think it’ll be really important.”
Thursday’s game has Commissioner’s Cup implications too. The Liberty are 3-0 in Cup games, while the Dream are 3-1. Atlanta leads the conference in point differential at plus-43, giving it a nine-point edge on New York.
The Liberty didn’t talk about the in-season tournament at Wednesday’s practice, but Jones said the Cup is in the back of everyone’s minds.
“Everybody’s playing the Commissioner’s Cup to win,” she said. “There’s a lot on the line right now with the $30,000 for the winners and then also for the organizations that all of us are playing for … So that’s going to be really important. You want to win, and we don’t want to leave it to point spread or anything like that. You got to go out and get the W.”
