Aces 70, Liberty 69: The final boss
The Liberty fall agonizingly short of a title-deciding Game 5 by falling to the deserving champion Aces in Game 4
The New York Liberty had a chance to chase history in last night’s Game 4 of the WNBA Finals. With the Las Vegas Aces having lost starters Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes to injuries in Game 3, if the Liberty could best a shorthanded opponent in a building where they won 78% of their games this year, including all three against Vegas, they’d force a winner-take-all finale. The Liberty could also become the first WNBA team to come back from down 0-2 in a best-of-5 and win the series.
Instead the Aces, the league’s highest-octane offense, turned to their defense, holding the Liberty below 70 for only the third time in 50 games this year in a 70-69 win that gave them their second consecutive championship. The common theme in those three games for the Liberty: when Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu don’t make shots, New York doesn’t play with the same freedom; the energy’s entirely different. Much of the credit for Stewart’s struggles goes to Sixth Woman of the Year Alysha Clark, pressed into the starting lineup and into the job of matching up with the league MVP in a game she came into smelling blood.
“Just knowing what she likes to do,” Clark said potsgame when asked about her approach to guarding Stewart. “And just locking in and making sure that I don’t give that to her.” Combine that with Jonquel Jones scoring just six points, her fewest in six weeks, and there’s one reason the Aces are champs: tie one hand behind their back and they’ll still find a way to win.
Much of the credit for Jones’ struggles goes to A’ja Wilson, the best player on the best team, on both ends. On top of the stellar defending, knowing the offense would need new tactics without Gray leading the band, knowing the title was within reach, Wilson turned up the percussion, getting back to basics – back to bass. With the spotlight at its brightest, Wilson shone brighter, scoring a game-high 24, making most of her shots – all in the midrange and the paint – while hauling a Finals-high 16 rebounds.
When Alexander the Great was 27, the warlord Spitamenes led the people of Sogdiana in an uprising against the Macedonian. Alexander had been trying to repel an invasion by an army of equestrian nomads, so adding a rebellion to an incursion placed the Great firmly in the crux of the biscuit. He went on to defeat the Scythians and Spitamenes, whose own men eventually killed him as a peace offering. Five years later he was dead. All of which is to say Wilson, having led the Aces to another trophy, is measuring up pretty nicely among history’s greatest 27-year-olds.
The Aces are the first team to win consecutive titles since the 2002 Los Angeles Sparks; that team also defeated the Liberty in the Finals, a New York team that featured Becky Hammon. Hammon pushed her team when they could have licked their wounds and let it all ride on the love and support of their home fans in a Game 5 Sunday. The Aces were clearly too shorthanded to do a lot of things they usually do. For some teams, that’s a death sentence. For Hammon’s, it was an invitation to experiment, especially on the defensive end. The Liberty were thrown off.
“I think they were throwing whatever defense they had at us and make sure it’s ugly,” Stewart said. “Sometimes we lost our flow and ball movement.”
Champions aren’t won by assembling an overwhelming stockpile of skill. Loads of teams hoard talent and don’t win. A champion loses one piece and another takes advantage, bringing something unique but essential to the table. With Gray on crutches, the Aces vaunted three-guard attack looked a little light. Enter Sydney Colson, who put up a game high (by a country mile) +17 in 15 minutes off the bench, only the fourth time since 2020 she’s played that many. The last team standing goesn’t get that way by limping around. There was a need. Colson was the next one up. She stepped up.
Starting in place of Stokes, Cayla George’s night was even more unexpected. The Australian played 30 minutes, her first time seeing that many since her rookie season back in 2015. George doesn’t impact the glass or protect the paint the way Stokes can, but she scored a sixth of her team’s 70 points in a title-clinching game. And her willingness to play her game – she launched 10 threes – let her teammates know they were working with the George they know, and not someone who shrunk and freaked in big moments. George playing her game let the otherAces keep playing theirs.
Before Las Vegas had the Aces, they were the San Antonio Stars, before that the Silver Stars and before that the Utah Starzz. All in all, whatever it took to get here’s been worth the ride. What’s next? Does Candace Parker, 37 and coming off surgery to fix a fractured foot, want to return? How does the team replenish the top-end talent lost if she doesn’t? What can they do to address their depth? There are always questions in need of answers. There are not always titles to celebrate, rarer still after the season-long heavy morphs into an underdog right at the very end before winning it all. Enjoy the champs. They may be here a while.
And the Liberty? What do they take away from a season that ranks as both the greatest in franchise history and arguably the most heartwrenching? Late in the first quarter, Stewart was fouled by Wilson taking a three. The officials reviewed the play to see if Wilson had encroached on Stewart’s landing space. There was no real sign of that, but it was a big moment just waiting for the decision. The Liberty were up eight at the time, and they and 17,000 partisans were like Linus in the pumpkin patch, faithfully waiting for the Great Whomping to show up and reward their faith, when their sheer talent level would let them transcend the mortal plane and elevate to become the communal séance of squeaky sneaks and wishes-become-swishes Barclays has seen all season.
The refs correctly ruled it a common foul, but there was still a moment when the distance might have grown too far too fast. Stewart hit the first two foul shots to put New York up 10, then missed the third but ended up with the rebound and a good look at a jumper from around the same spot. Had she made it, a four-point possession would have put them up 12. It might have felt like destiny was theirs this night. It might have been.
Instead the Aces found their footing, down nine at the half and having clear success mucking up the Liberty’s offense. Even though New York was up, their footing felt shaky. A 23-9 Aces run covering most of the third quarter gave the game the quality of watching a lion chase a gazelle, that awful, terrific feeling that hits the instant it becomes clear the predator has caught up to its prey. The fourth quarter felt frantic, frenetic. To the Liberty, that meant lots of plans had run amok; to the Aces, it justified their faith in each other.
There was one last chance at the buzzer, because while the basketball gods sometimes work in mysterious ways, even they grasp the benefit of the league’s marquee teams finally playing a close game after the prior eight were decided by 17, 38, 13, 9, 19, 17, 28 and 14. Down six with a little over a minute left, Courtney Vandersloot hit a 3-pointer, then on the Aces’ possession stole the ball from Kelsey Plum and passed to Ionescu, who hit a 2-point jumper to cut the gap to one. The Aces looked to be in a good place when Wilson caught the ball near the paint and advanced toward the hoop, but Stewart, Jones and Ionescu combined to block the shot and secure possession. Coach Sandy Brondello called timeout to draw up the last play with just under nine seconds left.
She might have done the Aces a favor. Amidst all the hullabaloo and hijinx in end-of-game scrambling scenarios, individual talent and decisions become more significant. Ionescu had the ball when time was called; if you’d told the Liberty brain trust before the season began it’d all come down to Ionescu one-on-one against someone, needing a two to win, I bet they’d like their chances. Instead the timeout stopped the melee and allowed Las Vegas to do something fairly simple by their standards (they did own the league’s highest-rated defense): defend well for just under nine seconds.
This last possession of the season highlighted the biggest area of need for the Liberty to address if they want to be hoisting hardware sooner than later. When Parker was healthy, the Aces were clearly better than everyone, a level ahead, even over the Liberty. The lineup the Aces were hoping to deploy a ton this year featured Parker, Wilson, Plum, Gray and Jackie Young. Those are five players who can all create a shot for themselves or a teammate at any time. Whether it’s Plum penetrating, Young in the pick-and-roll, Gray posting, Parker down lown or out far or Wilson somewhere in-between, they’re truly a five-dimensional offense.
On New York’s last possession, needing someone to create in a tight spot, there were only two places the ball could go: Stewart or Ionescu. That was it. While the Liberty were playing all five members of their top lineup and the Aces were without 40% of theirs, Vegas still had the upper hand in creative firepower. Stewart got the inbounds, as you’d expect. As soon as she drove near the paint, Young flashed over to double, leaving Plum responsible for both Vandersloot and Betnijah Laney on the weakside. The double-team muddied Stewart’s pass enough so that Laney, who prefers to catch and shoot from close to her face, instead caught the pass near her knee. Plum rotated to her, leaving Vandersloot in the corner. Young did a nice job flying over from the lane to contest the last look.
Vandersloot played a terrific game last night, but her position seems the most obviously capable of being upgraded. In all three playoff series, the Liberty got a firsthand look at point guards who could break them down, whether off the dribble or working out of the post: Natasha Cloud and Brittany Sykes for Washington; DiJonai Carrington in short brusts for Connecticut; Gray and Plum in particular for Las Vegas. They don’t have someone like that.
The Liberty were fortunate last night – Vandersloot was both willing to shoot and dangerous when doing so; when either is not the case, sets short-circuit. Would Skylar Diggins-Smith, a free agent who played a year in Phoenix for Brondello and who’s publicly called the Mercury out for mistreating her while on maternity leave, consider New York an option? Would the Liberty be interested? Who else might want to join the arms race?
Anyone who’s ever played video games knows some final bosses can’t be beaten until you’ve lost to them first. Repetition teaches patterns and vulnerabilities – our own and our opponent’s. The Liberty won more this year than they ever have, by total and by share. In the playoffs they defeated two foes who’ve had success recently reaching the Finals, if not winning them altogether. They very nearly accomplished everything they set out to in year one, a credit to how far the organization has come, and how fast. The 2023 Liberty had an A+ season. They just couldn’t knock off the greatest WNBA team ever.
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost,” Thoreau wrote. “That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” New York need only add a bit more to their foundations and someday soon they and their fans could be dreaming ever sweeter dreams.
