Ten days after the New York Liberty swept the Minnesota Lynx in the first round of the playoffs to become the first No. 8 seed to knock out a No. 1 seed in WNBA history, they were swept out of the semifinals by the Atlanta Dream. It was a fitting end to another frustrating season in Brooklyn. After re-signing the Big Three of Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu, convincing Satou Sabally to take a discount in free agency, bolstering the supporting cast with an array of international signings, including Pauline Astier, and hiring Chris DeMarco as their new coach, the Liberty were installed as the preseason title favorites.
Neither Ionescu (ankle), Sabally (cyst), nor Leonie Fiebich (overseas commitments) was ready for opening night, but they won anyway by 31. A few nights later, they blew a 13-point lead to the expansion Portland Fire and lost on a buzzer-beater. And so their season would go.
"We want to win a championship every single time we step on the court, but it's really hard in this league. And in order to do that, you need to be consistent for the full 44 games, and now it's going to be 50 and whatever, and I think that I don't think we were consistent throughout the season," Stewart said after the Game 3 loss to the Dream. "It's not like cramming for a test.
You gotta you gotta be ready to go since the jump." Sabally wouldn't make her debut until May 21, and by the time she was finally rounding into form, she took an elbow from NaLyssa Smith and was diagnosed with a concussion -- her second in less than a year -- that ultimately ended her season. She stepped away from the team in August, having played 13 games. Ionescu made her debut on May 24, played one game and then went back to the sidelines for another three weeks due to a back injury.
She rarely looked like her usual self upon her return. Fiebich didn't make her debut until May 27 because she was still overseas with her Spanish club team, Valencia. A little more than a month later, she suffered a foot injury that kept her sidelined for seven weeks.
After returning, she scored in double figures just three times, including the playoffs. All of the injuries prevented the Liberty from ever finding a rhythm with their ideal starting five. Stewart, Jones, Ionescu, Fiebich and Sabally only played 25 minutes together, and the Liberty's most-frequent lineup of Stewart, Jones, Ionescu, Astier and Rebecca Allen only played 157 minutes.
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