WNBA Finals: Liberty, Sabrina Ionescu taught lesson about playoff defense in Game 1 loss to Aces
Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Young (0) passes around New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu (20) during the second half in Game 1 of a WNBA basketball final playoff series Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP/John Locher
LAS VEGAS — Sabrina Ionescu is one of two players in the WNBA with a signature shoe, the Sabrina 1 that was released by Nike last month. The Liberty guard has endorsement deals with Nike, Body Armor, State Farm and Xbox.
The one thing that Ionescu didn’t have heading into this year’s WNBA finals against the Las Vegas Aces? Experience playing for a WNBA championship. This was a fact that Aces guards clearly exploited in Game 1 as they helped their team roll to a 99-82 victory over the Liberty.
Not only did Aces guards Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young win a WNBA championship together last year, they have a total of 14 years of playoff experience heading into the finals. Ionescu’s playoff experience was limited to four games entering this season.
Ionescu has been the face of the Liberty since she was taken with the No. 1 overall pick out of Oregon in 2020. This season, helped by the addition of three All-Star teammates, she took her offensive game to the next level, setting a season record for three-pointers made with 128.
On defense, however, she still has significant development to go. And, though the Liberty like to talk around this by saying any defensive deficiencies are a team issue, having Ionescu on the court with 34-year-old Courtney Vandersloot, the team’s other starting guard, for long stretches isn’t a good option in this series.
“I’m not going to tell you what we’re going to do,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said when asked at Tuesday’s practice session what changes she had planned defensively for Game 2. “Their guards really, really hurt us. But playing them a little smarter and knowing their tendencies. A lot of that was one-on-one defense. We just have to play harder.”
Ionescu said the Liberty’s defense has to make it more difficult on the guards, and she acknowledged that experience was a factor in Game 1. It was particularly hard in the third quarter when the Aces broke open what had been a close game with an 11-2 run.
“It’ gets deflating when a team gets out and it scores and scores and scores and you feel like you are letting your team down,” Ionescu said. “That’s what happened in that last game. I think everyone internalized that we weren’t doing our job to the best of our ability and it had a snowball effect. I think coming out with that defensive mindset of next-play mentality and continuing to control what we can is what we have to do.
“Because obviously they are a great team, they’ve been here and we have to weather that storm.”
A young player’s development on defense typically lags behind what they can do on offense, because it takes a while to understand the tendencies of your competition and how you can utilize your strengths against them. Ionescu is also coming from an Oregon program that played primarily zone defense, which the Liberty didn’t use during the regular season.
“She’s young,” Aces coach Beck Hammon said of Ionescu. “There’s a lot of young players that are super talented, but you’re competing against grown women who are savvy vets and know all the tricks of the trade. It takes a minute to get there. Chelsea Gray is a prime example of someone who may not be the fastest, but I don’t know of anyone who has quicker hands and better anticipation than she has.
“They will figure it out and I think Sabrina’s growth this year, just offensively and as a type of shooter, there’s things that she’s really become elite at. I think it can be easy to say, ‘Oh, she doesn’t do this.’ It’s like you are never going to find the perfect, perfect player.
“She’s a student of the game. She will figure it out. I have no doubts. She’ll probably figure it out Wednesday night.”
Wednesday night is Game 2 and if the Liberty don’t want to be in a must-win situation in the best-of-five series when they return to Barclays Center, they are going to have to figure out how to contain the Aces’ guards. Brondello indicated that she might go to her bench a little earlier.
The guards’ defensive troubles also bled over into the team’s offense as they were unable to get their three-point attack going. Ionescu was 1-for-5 from three-point range and finished with just seven points. The Liberty, who led the league in threes in the regular season, made just one shot from behind the arc in the second half.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
