Liberty 99, Mercury 95: Pressure makes diamonds

The Liberty get back to their winning ways behind another historic effort from Breanna Stewart

Everyone is watching the New York Liberty. Well, 7,151 fans were watching in person, including WNBA legend Sue Bird. The stage is set, as the WNBA season is nearly halfway done and the Liberty are continuing to draw more eyeballs. Who wouldn’t want to watch? Looking at the Liberty roster is like looking at a ChatGPT-generated list of the best WNBA players right now. Members of the squad are hitting milestone after milestone in their championship odyssey. With this attention and success, though, comes heightened pressure every step of the way.  

Pressure makes diamonds.

In a championship run my senior year of college, a teammate’s dad handed out Winning: The Unforgivable Race to Greatness to our 18-woman roster and three-person coaching staff. Our team had lost horribly the year before, and we had a lot of pressure on us to perform at a high level. I think this book helped us do that. Tim S. Grover compiled years of coaching knowledge into Winning, writing about what he learned about himself and about greats like Michael Jordan.

Grover outlines the hard work and dedication it took for Jordan and other players to lock in, to be relentless and selfish in their pursuit of winning. One of the byproducts of this determination is that the competition starts to become even more aware of the one who is winning:

“Winning ignites a self-conscious awareness that others are watching. It’s a lot easier to move under the radar when no one knows you and no one is paying attention. You can mess up and be rough and get dirty because no one even knows you’re there. But as soon as you start to win, and others start to notice, you’re suddenly aware that you’re being observed. You’re being judged. You worry that others will discover your flaws and weaknesses, and you start hiding your true personality.”

Grover’s vivid analysis of the extent to which winning can affect The Winner is what I want to dive into here, as the New York Liberty are doing (knock on wood) a lot of winning. The Liberty lead the Eastern Conference with a 12-4 record; the Connecticut Sun trail with just one more loss. In the west, the Las Vegas Aces are the best by far, leading the league with their .941 win percentage. The Liberty traveled to Sin City and lost to the Aces 98-81. Since then, they have picked up wins against the Storm and against the Mercury. 

Yes, that Phoenix Mercury. The one with Diana Taurasi, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Sophie Cunningham, Michaela Onyenwere and Brittney Griner. The squad that made it to the WNBA finals two seasons ago. Taurasi led her team with 23 points, and despite getting outscored in the first quarter 26-13 and down 20 with four minutes left in the third, the Mercury managed to tie it at 92 down the stretch. Former Liberty forward Onyenwere scored to give the Mercury their first lead since opening minutes. 

The Mercury, despite sitting sixth in WNBA, are a formidable opponent. Their record and the firing of their coach after a 2-10 start may say otherwise. What sets them apart, however, is their star power. 

To go back to Grover’s analogy, the Mercury could be considered a team that flies under the radar. They could be a team that goes unnoticed. That’s dangerous. The Liberty had just dropped a game to the best team in the league, a capital-W Winning team. 

The Liberty needed this win. They needed to win one against a tough team, one that could propel them forward throughout the season where scouting reports are abundant and teams take notice of the nuances of their game.

To be a Winner is to invite the observations of many – including you, valued reader – and yet maintain the focus to tune out the voices and opinions that don’t matter. 

The slip-ups that saw a 20-point lead be ruined, only to have it come back around again, are overshadowed because of the win. Breanna Stewart helped the Lib come back, scoring 14 of the team’s final 16 and 43 on the night. “The starters, we have the most chemistry together and we fall back on that,” Stewart said. “We believe in each other and we continue to trust one another.”

For a team with so much talent, learning selflessness and the ability to spread the ball has helped the Liberty live up to the hype in moments this season. Stringing together these moments with the awareness that more eyes or going to be on them late in the season is what the Liberty need to do to continue to Win.