Glenn Was Impressed With Jets First Half
Photo: Michael Henriquez – NY Beacon
MetLife Stadium
The New York Liberty’s 85-66 home win against the Chicago Sky Saturday was a turnaround victory fueled by their 79-60 loss, a season low, to the Golden State Valkyries Thursday night in Brooklyn.
The Liberty knew they were playoff bound, but Thursday’s game was an opportunity for self analysis after losing to one of the best teams in the WNBA this season. Jonquel Jones led New York with 18 points and Breanna Stewart, who was celebrating her birthday added 16 on Thursday, but it wasn’t enough as the team struggled to score.
“If we’re missing threes or we’re missing shots, you have to find other ways to get points obviously,” said New York Liberty Head Coach Chris DeMarco following the game. “We feel like we could rebound a little bit more. Defensively, probably have to turn them over a little bit more.”
THURSDAY
The Liberty pulled ahead of the Valkyries by four points several times in the beginning of the game, but trailed 21-19 at the end of the first quarter and failed to take the lead again. They trailed 42-30 at halftime and 59-47 at the end of the third quarter.
“You look at the second and the fourth quarter, we couldn’t really score,” Stewart said about why they lost control of the game.
The Liberty were outscored 21-11 in the second quarter and 20-13 in the fourth.
“I feel like defensively we did pretty well,” Stewart said. “Our goal is to keep teams under 20 a quarter.”
Stewart attributed the Valkyries’ physicality as part of the challenge, but felt the Liberty needed to find a way to score.
“I thought really for a majority of the game we were getting good looks at three, like really good looks at three and just couldn’t convert,” Stewart said.
The Liberty made 27.3% of their 3-pointers in the first quarter and 12.5% of their 3-pointers in the third quarter. Jones made 4 of 6 3-pointers in the game and Stewart made 0 of 1. Sabrina Ionescu, who in 2025 became known as the Liberty’s all-time franchise leader in 3-pointers, added seven points in the game and made 1 of 9 3-pointers.
Jones said the Valkyries rotated well and were very active defensively, which was why she felt the Liberty was swept by the team 3-0 this season. She said they had control early in Thursday’s game, but things got out of hand and the missed shots were frustrating in the fourth quarter. Jones passed Taj McWilliams-Franklin on the all‑time blocks list in the WNBA Thursday, moving into 13th place.
“Yeah, I’m not really in a celebratory mood right now,” she said about the achievement. “Just want to continue to stack wins, continue to build good habits. I think in this stretch for the most part, we’ve been taking steps in the right direction as a team.”
FRIDAY
The Liberty outscored the Chicago Sky in each quarter on Saturday. New York was ahead 21-11 at the end of the first quarter, 42-28 at half time, and 60-43 by the end of the third quarter. Han Xu led New York with 19 points, Stewart added 13, and Jones added 11 points. Saturday was an improvement for the Liberty. Five players scored over 10 points in the game, when only Jones and Stewart scored over 10 on Thursday. The Liberty also made 66.7% of their 3-pointers in the fourth quarter (their best quarter in the game for 3-pointers) and 16.7% of their 3-pointers in the third quarter (the quarter with the least amount in the game).
“If we’re going to go down swinging, we’re going to go down swinging in the ways that we do things and I don’t think we really did that in the last game,” Stewart said. “My message to the group was just like sometimes we lose games. Knowing that we had a quick turnaround, knowing that this was an interesting weekend because people are planning flights and they got to go places and their national teams are calling, like it’s a lot of things going on, but the message was just for them to to really stay locked in.”
The Liberty return to their regular season games September 18, due to the WNBA’s break for the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.
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