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A duel in the desert will open the knockout stage of the New York Liberty’s championship defense.
Locked into the fifth slot on the WNBA playoff bracket, the Liberty is officially locked into a match the fourth-ranked Phoenix Mercury. The matchup was officially set up on Tuesday when Phoenix dropped an 88-83 decision to the Los Angeles Sparks.
This WNBA postseason’s opening round will move to a 1-1-1 best-of-three forma after the higher seed hosted the first two games in recent showings. Game 1 of this series will be staged on Sunday at PHX Arena while the second game will be staged in Brooklyn either next Tuesday or Wednesday. Game 3, if necessary, returns to the desert on either the following Thursday or Friday.
Bosting the services of MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas, American Olympic heroine Kahleah Copper, and three-time All-Star Satou Sabally, Phoenix (27-16) has had the Liberty’s number this season, winning three of the four regular season get-togethers. The most recent was an 80-63 Mercury mauling in the desert last weekend, one that saw them limit the Liberty to only 24 second half points.
But New York (26-17) could perhaps take solace in the fact that it won the long matchups where they were at relative full strength, namely carrying the services of its “big three” Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones, and Breanna Stewart.
Ionescu had 29 points while Jones posted a 20-point, 11-rebound double-double in an 89-76 win at Barclays Center on July 25. The Liberty played with a full contingent for the first time since the third game of the season back in late May on Tuesday, which saw them take down the Washington Mystics 75-66 in Brooklyn.
The matchup situates two of the WNBA’s original franchises for their fourth-ever postseason get-together. The three prior occasions were single-game showings in 1997, 2016, and 2021. New York prevailed in the first en route to the original WNBA Finals while the Mercury has won the latter showdowns. The most recent bout in 2021 served as one of the final showings in the desert for head coach Sandy Brondello, who took the Mercury to that season’s Finals before the Liberty hired her during the ensuing offseason.
Reunions galore partly defined the showdown: Brondello will return to Phoenix, the site of her first championship as a coach in 2014, while Sabally will do battle with her seafoam-branded sister Nyara, who returned from a knee injury on Tuesday. Phoenix also boasts the services of veteran depth star Sami Whitcomb, who spent two seasons in Brooklyn and also worked under Brondello during Australia’s run to the bronze medal in last year’s Olympic Games in Paris.
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