If you’re a follower of the Liberty, the upcoming Olympic break will be a bittersweet one for you. You’ll be bored without games to watch (or maybe watching them isn’t always an enjoyable experience –that's up to you7), but happy that the team can return to full strength.
After a 77-59 home win against Seattle on Sunday, the Liberty are within shouting distance in the Eastern Conference. They're 5 games out at 5-9, and have a chance to improve even further, playing the 2nd place Chicago Sky at 8:30. The team will be without Plenette Pierson for another game, and without veteran Kelly Miller. She was released earlier this week and replaced with Katelan Redmon, who was drafted by New York this year, then cut on May 27th.
It’s one bad break after another for the Liberty. After seemingly revitalizing their season and bringing their record up to 3-5, the team now stands 4-9 after a 1-4 stretch that saw them fall to the Atlanta Dream twice. The most recent of those meetings was Sunday night in front of over 6,700 fans, including Knicks SG J.R. Smith and legend Walt Frazier. While the turnout was great, it might not continue to be that way after the performance they turned in.
While the Liberty have gone 3-1 over their past 4 games, they certainly don’t seem thrilled about it. That’s because they just lost a crucial home game to Chicago and now face two teams at the start of road trip in Connecticut and Minnesota that are 6-2 and 9-0, respectively. It’s worth noting that the Chicago Sky have only dropped one game, so the Liberty should have been happy to at least keep it to a 9-point game. The frustrating part is that there’s a feeling around the locker room that the team could’ve had it.
The surging Liberty have won two straight and stand at 2-5, just three games out of first in the Eastern Conference. They handed the Indiana Fever their first loss on Saturday 87-82, and followed that up with a 79-74 win over 2010 and 2011 WNBA Finalists, the Atlanta Dream. Kia Vaughn has took it upon herself to solve the Liberty’s problem inside, hitting jump-shot after jump-shot and scoring with ease around the basket.
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