Liberty 87, Sun 84 (3-1): One more hill to climb
A team for the ages continues a season for the ages as the Liberty advance to the WNBA Finals
The thing about superteams is they’re almost never super right away, if ever. The 1984 Mets, led by Rookie of the Year Doc Gooden, Rookie of the Year the year before that Darry Strawberry and MVP runner-up Keith Hernandez finished second. That winter they added Gary Carter, who went on to finish sixth in MVP voting in 1985, the same year Doc had his historic 24-4/1.53 Cy Young campaign. The Mets came in second. Again.
The Rangers landed Mark Messier in 1991. Didn’t win the Stanley Cup that year. Nor the year after. The Yankees followed up multiple titles with the additions of Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Randy Johnson. They’ve won one World Series in 23 years. The Brooklyn Nets tried two different approaches to building a superteam; they’ve won as many NBA titles as the Harlem Globetrotters.
So when the New York Liberty defeated the Connecticut Sun 87-84 Sunday to advance to their first WNBA Finals since 2002, the accomplishment wasn’t simply fun for their fans. It stamped the feat as unique in the annals of NYC sports. There’s still the matter of the championship round against the defending champs from Las Vegas, but the Liberty dreamed up a big offseason, delivered and have dominated ever since. They don’t throw parades for that. Maybe they should.
In the Piri Thomas classic Down These Mean Streets, a father imparts this wisdom to his child: “Son, if you’re ever fighting somebody an’ you punch him in the nose, and he just blinks an’ sniffs without holding his nose, you can do one of two things: fight like hell or run like hell – ‘cause that cat’s a fighter.” The numbers say the Liberty won seven of eight games against the Sun this season, so they clearly owned them. Numbers never been in a fight; they don’t know what it’s like when all the world tastes of blood.
In Washington and Connecticut, New York faced a couple of former heavyweights that counted on being counted out, two teams that, combined, are three of the last eight Finalists. The Liberty may have won five of those six games, but they were tested in both series: the Mystics were one defensive rebound late in Game 2 from forcing a winner-take-all game on their home floor; the Sun were a horror-movie monster all series and all season, defying every seeming death blow to rise up and fight again. Lose Jonquel Jones in the offseason, then Brionna Jones in June? Lose Rebecca Allen, Tiffany Hayes and Alyssa Thomas at various points the past two games? Cue the scary violins. They may go down, but they don’t stay down.
As long as Candace Parker is out injured, the Liberty possess one advantage no other team does. Even the Sun, with Thomas and DeWanna Bonner – that’s nine combined All-Star selections – can’t match the greatness of the Lib’s twin towers, Jones and Breanna Stewart. Jones took a while to look like herself during the regular season, while Stewart struggled with her shooting for the first few playoff games. But yesterday, when the season hit its biggest big moments, they scored 20 of their team’s 21 fourth-quarter points, including 15 over the final 3:30. As much as any other reason, the Liberty are headed to Nevada instead of a Game 5 because Jones turned into Pac Man, gobbling up every rebound in sight. And because even after two series matched up against Elena Delle Donne and Thomas, Stewart is on another level than those two first-ballot Hall of Famers.
As long as Parker is out, the Liberty appear to have the best five-person unit in the W. Jones and Stewart won Act III, but they’re not in position to save the day if Sabrina Ionescu and Courtney Vandersloot aren’t both committed to moving the ball around to the tune of seven assists each. And what’s left to be written about Betnijah Laney? When God rested on the seventh day, Laney was still out there, putting up a 21/7/5 line like she did yesterday.
Of course, there are superteams and then there are Superteams. To capitalize on that capitalization, the Liberty have one more hill to climb. It’s a steep one. The Aces have a week to prepare for them, A’ja Wilson has extra motivation after losing the MVP award to Stewart and Vegas has shown they’re a team that’ll take a punch and come back blinking and sniffing. It should be a hell of a Finals; if nothing else, the result is one of life’s rare and beautiful moments: the people have been given what they want. They don’t throw parades for that sort of thing. Maybe they should.
