It’s been a rough start to the season for the New York Liberty. Sabrina Ionescu has only played one game so far because of an ankle injury she suffered in a preseason game, and Satou Sabally missed preseason and several regular-season games. On top of that, Leonie Fiebich hasn’t suited up yet, and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed some time due to personal reasons. With that many absences, it’s difficult to build chemistry and beat some of the more star-studded, deeper teams in the WNBA.
Portland is not one of those teams. Led by Bridget Carleton and Carla Leite, the Fire are scrappy and tough, but they shouldn’t stand a chance against the Liberty—even a short-handed team that “only” had Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart available. And yet, the Fire beat the Liberty for the second time this season and extended New York’s losing streak to three games.
Stewart called out a lack of effort and urgency after the game, but after a 3-4 start that includes ugly losses to the Fire and Wings, one can’t help but wonder if the issue is deeper than just missing important players and not playing hard enough. Did the Liberty, perhaps, not hire the right head coach for a team with championship expectations?
Chris DeMarco is running out of time to prove himself
The Liberty’s decision to hire Chris DeMarco was received with mixed reactions. On one hand, fans could see the vision for Sabrina Ionescu. DeMarco had spent years as an assistant for the Golden State Warriors, learning how to make the most of a gravitational 3-point shooter on the court. On the other hand, it was yet another WNBA coaching job that went to a man with no experience in the league.
The latter feeling was only exemplified when DeMarco admitted in his introductory press conference that he still had to learn about the history of the league and the franchise and the players he was about to coach.
Hiring a rookie head coach is always a risk, but it is even more so for a team with a big four desperate to win another championship.
The Liberty look discombobulated on both ends of the floor
Making a new system work is difficult when so many players are in and out of the rotation, but the Liberty also don’t look great when they are playing players who have been available for all of (or most of) training camp and the start of the regular season—Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, Marine Johannes, Pauline Astier, Rebekah Gardner, and Han Xu.
They turn the ball over at a high rate—they have totaled the second-most turnovers so far this season—and suffer defensive breakdowns. Both were issues against the Fire. The Liberty turned the ball over 19 times for 23 Portland points. Some of those turnovers were just inexplicable miscues for a veteran-heavy team, like Johannes just throwing the ball away in a pick-and-roll with Jones, or Gardner stepping out of bounds after an advance pass from Johannes out of the backcourt.
On defense, the Liberty regularly failed to close out possessions and struggled to contain Carla Leite, especially late in the fourth quarter with the game on the line. The Liberty doubled Leite twice in the last three minutes, and both possessions led to wide-open threes for the Fire because someone didn’t rotate or close out fast enough. Luisa Geiselsöder made one shot, and Carleton missed the second. When the Liberty didn’t double Leite, she just got right past Astier for a layup with 38.9 seconds left and faced no resistance from a help defender.
Moreover, DeMarco used a challenge with just under four minutes left in the fourth quarter to try to turn a straight up block from Emily Engstler on Astier into a foul. The challenge was unsuccessful, the Fire got the ball back, and Sarah Ashlee Barker hit a 3-pointer to give Portland the lead. The Fire never looked back after that play. Winning a challenge and hitting a big shot just gave the Fire even more momentum.
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