By Leila Tai Brown
Saturday night’s meeting with the Phoenix Mercury officially brought the New York Liberty’s pursuit of a playoff berth to an end with a 83-67 loss.
Liberty’s Forward Joyner Holmes was the top scorer of the night with 13 points and a game high 13 rebounds. Holmes was followed closely by guaurd Layshia Clarendon and Kia Nurse who put up 12 and 11 points of their own. Despite their effort, they were unable to overcome the dominating performance by Mercury with Skylar Diggins-Smith recording a season-high 30 points, followed by Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Kia Vaughn with 15 and 12 points.
Despite the elimination from playoff contention, Head Coach Walt Hopkins continues to show optimism in his first season at the helm for New York. “ I’m as frustrated as anybody that, you know, they’re not going down. But I’m also probably more proud than most people because they’re sticking with it.” Hopkins said in Saturday night’s post game interview. “They’re doing a great job executing the things that we want to execute. You know, we’re just having trouble scoring, having trouble putting the ball in the basket.” he went on to say.
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In a season that has been dampened by COVID-19 delays, the Liberty also suffered two major injuries. First round draft pick Sabrina Ionescu suffered a severe sprained ankle in just her third game as a WNBA player, and Asia Durr was forced to the sidelines with a hip injury in her Sophomore season with the league. “ You know, those two are missed for sure. It’s not to take anything away from this group, But there’s no doubt in my mind that, yes that would undoubtedly change some things. It’s just like any other team that’s had, you know, lost one of their big time players. I mean, Sabrina is one of the stars in the league, and things work a little bit better when you have those stars to orbit around.” Coach Hopkins said..
Hopkins served as assistant coach to the Minnesota Lynx prior to taking on the Liberty and is the WNBA’s youngest head coach at 34 years old. While he realizes that the win record is not ideal, he is not ready to change course of strategy for the team. “It doesn’t happen overnight, and I understand, the desire for people to want to win games right now. But as I’ve said multiple times, looking at a longer view and understanding that, if and when [Kia]Stokes and Layshia[Clarendon], among others, develop their confidence and the consistency from three, they are going to be an absolute nightmare. And I could cut them off now and tell them don’t shoot any more threes because we need to and we need to win these next four games. If you’re if you’re trying to build something, it goes much further than this bubble season.”
The Liberty have four more games left in their season starting with a this past Tuesday’s matchup with the Los Angeles Sparks. Candace Parker and the Sparks are coming off of a victory over the Chicago Sky with a record of (14-5) to the Liberty’s (2-16) this season.
