In their first game back in the Barclays Center after a four-game road trip, New York wanted to give the Liberty faithful a win on their home floor. They delivered, defeating the Dallas Wings 85-76.
This game started with the Wings getting on the scoreboard first with JJ Quinerly making a layup and Arike Ogunbowale making a pull-up midrange jumper. Leonie Fiebich would respond with a driving left-hand layup for New York’s first points. Dallas would double team Jonquel Jones in the post, who swings it to Natasha Cloud, leaving New York’s new acquisition Emma Meesseman open for a three she cashes. After a three-pointer at the end of the shot clock by Ogunbowale, the Liberty would respond with a long two-point jumper by Jones. Marine Johannes would then steal the ball from Quinerly, pushing the pace in transition, hitting Rebekah Gardner in the right corner for a three to close the first quarter strong, getting a 24-15 lead to end the quarter.
The second quarter would be where the Wings would flip the script, with Luisa Geiselsöder starting off the period with a midrange jumper after running pick and roll with Arike. Maddy Siegrist would make a great backdoor cut for a layup, and Geiselsöder would convert a three-pointer, forcing Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello to call a timeout out of frustration with their slow start to the quarter. After the timeout, New York would respond with a two-play sequence where Jonquel Jones made a three-pointer to end a Wings 8-0 run, and with the threat of her three-point shot, Jones drew two defenders and passed it to Natasha Cloud for a wide-open layup, forcing Dallas to call a timeout.
The momentum would shift back to the Wings with Grace Berger converting a driving layup, Li Yueru making an open three, then Paige Bueckers hitting a nasty crossover on Stephanie Talbot, creating a lot of space to get off a midrange jumper. Talbot would make a three in the left corner to end a 9-0 run by the Wings. The rest of the quarter was a stalemate where neither team could get anything to fall, while Dallas would outscore the Liberty 20-13 in the quarter. New York would head into halftime with a 37-35 lead.
Paige started the quarter with a three-pointer, giving the Wings their first lead of the game since it was 4-2. New York would then get out and convert in transition, with Natasha Cloud shortly responding with a wide-open layup in transition. After grabbing a defensive rebound, Rebekah Gardner delivered a cross-court pass to Cloud for another open layup in transition. Sabrina Ionescu made an outlet pass to Jonquel Jones, who missed her first layup attempt and got the rebound and made the putback attempt, forcing Wings coach Chris Koclanes to call a timeout in anger over the team’s poor start to the beginning of the second half. Both teams would trade blows for the remainder of the quarter and New York held a 60-53 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Dallas would start the fourth quarter with a bang when Aziaha James stole a pass from Jonquel Jones and saved the ball before it goes out of bounds, leading to Haley Jones getting a layup in transition. After this, the Liberty would take the momentum and never look back, starting with Stephanie Talbot drilling a wide-open three. A few possessions later, Talbot makes a cutting layup. On the Liberty’s next offensive possession, she makes a three in the left corner, capping off Talbot scoring eight of New York’s ten points to start the fourth quarter, leading to Koclanes calling a timeout. After being fouled by Haley Jones, Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu would make both of her free throws, giving New York their largest lead of the night at 74-59. While the Wings would still show some fight, they didn’t have enough juice to get back in striking distance.
New York, with this win, is now on a two-game win streak and hold the top spot in the Eastern Conference with a 19-10 record. They will look to keep the wins rolling on Friday, where they will face the Dallas Wings again, this time in the College Park Center.
