NY Liberty vs. Chicago Sky preview: Regular season finale

One more to go. The New York Liberty closed out the home portion of their schedule with a tidy 75-66 win over the Washington Mystics on Tuesday night.

The opponent tonight is trying to get to the offseason as quickly as possible. It’s been a rough season for the Chicago Sky and they took another blowout loss at the hands of the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night. One more to go.

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All clear for the Liberty.

Ariel Atkins, Hailey Van Lith, and Courtney Vandersloot are out. Angel Reese and Elizabeth Williams.

New York won games one and two while Chicago took game three.

Y’all know the rules. Last game of the regular season with nothing to play for means you have one job and one job only: make it out of this contest healthy. Once this wraps, the Liberty have a date with the Phoenix Mercury in the first round of the playoffs starting on Sunday. We’ll find out the schedule once the other seeds are set in stone.

From when we last saw Angel Reese, things have fallen apart. She called out her organization (and by proxy her teammates) in the Chicago Tribune, got suspended for reaching the technical foul suspended, THEN got suspended by the team for those interview comments, and hasn’t played in a week with a reported back injury. This issue is far from over and will be a key discussion point throughout the off-season. I wrote about the issue at my newsletter (which you should subscribe to!), the Women’s Basketball Roundup:

When you’re a star basketball player, you eventually reach a point where you begin to assert yourself when it comes to how your team is built and try to direct the path the team is on. You’re set in your career, are fully confident and comfortable in your career, and want the organization to get its stuff together so it can compete for a championship…

This is another aspect of stardom that players like Reese must navigate. When you publicly challenge the course the organization is on, and intimate that the roster you’re on isn’t good enough, and have your words become the center of attention, you have to stand up and face the music.

Whether it’s from the press or your teammates, you’ve got to be able to have a conversation when your words reach people in the ways that Reese’s did and the meaning you had became lost in translation.

Relationships take a long time to build, but can be destroyed in a matter of seconds. We’ll see where things go from here.

For the Liberty, we’ll see how long they play their starters tonight. Sandy Brondello mentioned that she wants the group to get a few more reps in and some more minutes with lineups that could be part of the main playoff rotation. We’ve seen players like Breanna Stewart continue to shake off the rust following an injury absence, and the team will look for Sabrina Ionescu to knock some rust off as well.

Player to watch: Kamilla Cardoso

As the Sky try to figure out what to do in the future, Cardoso should be someone that plays a big part in their plans. She and Reese have made for a solid frontcourt duo that has room to get better. Like Reese, Cardoso could stand to be a bit better inside the restricted area as she’s shooting under 60 percent from the field in that part of the court. She’ll likely play overseas during the off-season, so she’ll have some chances to add to her game and work on some other parts that need improvement.

Throughout the week, Natasha Cloud and Leonie Fiebich have talked about the group needing to be better on the glass. They’ve been better at it in the past two games, and the team’s increased focus on the boards should give Jonquel Jones some help on that end. JJ had a pretty solid night on Tuesday and the team did some less switching on defense against the Mystics. We’ll see what the Liberty work on tonight as they get one last tune-up in before the stakes get higher starting on Sunday night.

September 11 is a very tough day for a lot of people here in New York and around the world. Hopefully, these moments provide a little bit of happiness and positivity on a sad day.

Peace and blessings to everyone out there.

More reading: Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, Swish Appeal, Breakaway, SB Nation, Women’s Basketball Roundup, The Local W, New York Daily News, Newsday, New York Post, NY Liberty Fan TV, No Cap Space, The Athletic, Fansided, Just Women’s Sports, Winsidr, Her Hoop Stats, Yahoo Sports, ESPN, CBS Sports, and The Next