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Ionescu started the game strong.
Satou Sabally, playing in only her second game of the season after a cyst initially sidelined her, looked more comfortable, too.
The two former college teammates at Oregon fed off one another.
Sabally finished with a team-high 20 points on 6-for-14 shooting.
Ionescu made four of her first eight field goal attempts, including a 29-foot 3-pointer.
She missed her last seven attempts.
She finished with 11 points, five rebounds and seven assists with only one turnovers.
“I feel good,” Ionescu said after the game.
But the story of the night was what Dallas did.
In the first half, it was Arike Ogunbowale.
Then, it was Azzi Fudd in the second half.
Paige Bueckers was a steady force for the Wings all game.
Ultimately, the Wings exposed the Liberty.
The absences of Leonie Fiebich (rest) and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton (personal reasons) were all the more glaring.
While the Liberty did a good job patrolling the paint, New York — without its two best perimeter defenders — had no solution for slowing the Wings’ elite guard play.
Fudd scored a career-high 24 points, including 17 in the third quarter.
Bueckers finished with 24 points and Ogunbowale added 19.
The Wings shot 15-for-35 from deep, including 9-for-18 in the second half.
Meanwhile, the Liberty made only eight of their 26 attempts from beyond the arc the entire night.
“Once they started getting going beyond the arc, the game really opened up for them,” Jonquel Jones said. “And we have to find ways to combat that.”
The Liberty’s defense has struggled early this season.
Some of that has been because of turnovers.
Miscommunication, slow closeouts and not securing rebounds have been some of the other reasons, too.
As a result, the Liberty have surrendered at least 90 points in three of the past five games.
The Wings turned a one-point halftime deficit into a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter.
The Liberty never mustered up enough stops to get back into the game.
“We just need to have a sense of urgency,” coach Chris DeMarco said. “We started out the game strong on the defensive end and then it’s about the adversity. When they hit a couple in a row, are we gonna have a fight? Are we gonna have the correct adjustments? Or are we gonna play together? And I know we will. I know we will.
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“And tonight, they hit some shots, we gotta be better in transition, we gotta be better offensively with the right shot so that they’re not leaking out, but we’ll be right next game, we got another one tomorrow.”
The Liberty are still feeling the growing pains of a new head coach and new system.
They’ve yet to play a game at full strength.
Raquel Carrera and Fiebich only joined the team a few days ago after winning a Spanish League title with Valencia earlier this month.
It takes time to get acquainted with one another and the new system.
The process isn’t linear.
“There’s good days, there’s bad days,” Jonquel Jones said, “but ultimately we’re all still learning.
“It’s not an excuse, it’s just the fact. But I do think as a core group that we have to be a little bit more connected, a little bit more … aggressive in our game plan and just I feel like teams, they feel comfortable, they look comfortable to me. Offensively, they just look like, ‘OK, it’s open season now. We could get what we want.’ And we never want that to be our identity or the feel for other teams coming into Barclays.”
What can the team address immediately?
“The most fixable issue is to stop letting teams score 90 points a game, that would be great,” Breanna Stewart said. “Just need to make it harder. It seems like when we have a good defensive stand and they get an offensive rebound, things like that and just being relentless defensively and then worry about our offense.”
The Liberty have a quick turnaround, with the Portland Fire coming to town Monday.
“We need to do a better job of executing and finishing the plays,” Stewart said. “We know who these players are, there’s a sense of urgency that’s kind of lacking, and luckily, like, when you have games and losses like this, a quick turnaround is very helpful even though back-to-backs aren’t the easiest.”
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