Liberty's Leonie Fiebich shows she's a pretty good rookie herself in Game 1 victory
Leonie Fiebich of the Liberty shoots during Game 1 against the Atlanta Dream at Barclays Center on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. Credit: Errol Anderson
There was a lot of hype in recent days about a certain rookie making her WNBA playoff debut.
Yet several hours before Indiana’s Caitlin Clark played in her first postseason game, another rookie came up with a big-time performance to help lead the Liberty to an 83-69 win over Atlanta in the first round of the WNBA playoffs.
In a move intended to shake the team out of its late-season malaise, rookie Leonie Fiebich was inserted into the starting lineup in place of five-time All-Star Courtney Vandersloot. Fiebich, 24, responded with a game that helped put the Liberty in position to quickly advance in the best-of-three series.
Fiebich set a Liberty record for a player appearing in her first postseason game by scoring 21 points. She missed only one shot the entire game, shooting 7-for-8 from the floor, 4-for-4 from three-point range and 3-for-3 on free throws. The 6-4 Fiebich also was effective on the other end of the floor as Atlanta struggled to deal with her physical play.
Clark, who certainly doesn’t have the team support that Fiebich has, was held to 11 points and 4-for-17 shooting in the visiting Fever’s 93-69 loss to the Sun.
“Leonie had a great game. We’ve bragged about her contributions all season long,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “Nothing fazes her. That’s what you love about her. Regular season. Playoffs. She brings the same mentality day in and day out.
“She’s a great defender. She’s got that length. We talked about that we can be a little more versatile . . . She’s got great length and she’s a great shooter. I like it when she’s shooting the ball.”
Although she was named to The Associated Press WNBA all-rookie team Sunday, Fiebich didn’t receive the kind of media and fan attention that Clark and Angel Reese did this season. Originally drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks in 2020, the German stayed in Europe to play for several different teams. The Liberty acquired her rights last year in a trade and signed her to a rookie contract this season.
Joining a team loaded with All-Stars and two former MVPs in Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones should have meant that Fiebich wasn’t going to get a lot of playing time. Injuries and absences by key Liberty players, including Vandersloot, who missed games when her mother became very ill before dying in June, led to Fiebich getting 15 starts.
Because of that, Brondello felt more than comfortable inserting her into the lineup even though she had averaged only 6.7 points in 20.9 minutes of play this season.
The adjustment proved to be critical as the Liberty, despite earning the No. 1 seed with a 32-8 record, struggled down the stretch of the regular season. In the final game of the season, they lost to this same Atlanta team — though it was a game Atlanta needed to win and meant nothing positioning-wise for the Liberty.
Brondello said she decided to shake up the starting lineup at practice on Saturday. The change wasn’t made public until the players were announced at the start of the game, and the shake-up seemed to really energize the starting group. The Liberty did not miss a shot for the first seven minutes and quickly took a double-digit lead. By the end of the first quarter, they were shooting 72.7% and led 29-16.
“The past few weeks, the way we were playing, we didn’t love it,” said Stewart, who had 20 points and 11 rebounds. “We started off the game seven minutes without missing, which is kind of crazy. We were pushing the game on all cylinders, and especially with a bigger lineup, we were able to control things.”
Added Fiebich: “We just came out with a different mindset of being really physical out there and setting the tone.”
Now the Liberty hope they have set the tone for the rest of the series and signaled to the rest of the league that there is more to their team than the Big 3 of Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jones.
What’s more, they may have signaled to the casual fan that this is a league with more than a few great rookies.
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.