Storm Beat Liberty 89-79 Part 2

Additional thoughts and interviews from Seattle's win over New York.

The Seattle Storm defeated an undermanned New York Liberty team 89-79 on Sunday evening in Seattle. Despite a gutsy effort by the defending champions, the Storm were able to out-execute the Liberty down the stretch, outscoring them 9-3 in the final three minutes of the game. If you missed it, you can read the full game recap here.

In Part 2, I wrote about the New York Liberty’s impressive depth, discussed the term “Scheduled Loss”, wrote about how the Storm are building a contender, and how we need to appreciate greatness on the basketball court in Nneka Ogwumike. Plus, I’ve included the post-game press conference video and audio interviews.

Scheduled Loss

I don’t remember the term “Scheduled Loss” being a thing in sports when I was younger. Teams would just go out and compete hard, whether they ultimately won or lost the game. If the other team was better, so be it. But these days, we are seeing more and more teams take a scheduled loss.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it generally refers to a team being handed a tough schedule, and a game that they are likely to lose due to the schedule. Maybe it’s going up against the league’s top team on the second game of a back-to-back. Or playing three games in four nights on the road.

But it also seems that the term “Scheduled Loss” is evolving to also include when a team may rest starters or play some of their backups in a game where the team figures they are likely to lose.

It probably goes hand-in-hand with “Load Management” where teams rest players either during a game they figure they can win without said player, or they assume they’re going to take a scheduled loss, so they might as well rest for more important games down the line.

We knew that the Liberty’s Leonie Fiebich would miss this game because she’s overseas playing for Germany in the Eurobasket tournament. We knew former league and Finals MVP Jonquel Jones would miss this game because her team announced she would miss 4-6 weeks with an ankle injury.

But I was surprised to see New York announce that Sabrina Ionescu would miss Sunday’s game against Seattle. She traveled with the team. And it’s a quasi-homecoming for the former University of Oregon basketball star. The Storm are the closest WNBA team to her old college stomping grounds, at least until next year when the Portland (possibly) Fire get resurrected like the Phoenix.

When I saw that Ionescu was ruled out and wouldn’t be playing against Seattle, I immediately thought about how the Liberty may have looked at this game against the Storm as a scheduled loss. Especially, once they got confirmation that Jones would have to miss several weeks.

Another thing I wondered is if this was a strategy by Coach Sandy Brondello and her staff in the likelihood that these two teams match up in the playoffs later this year. Brondello and company got a good look at Seattle’s full squad. Where the Storm don’t know what a game would be like exactly if the Liberty had everyone on their team healthy. Of course, there are still more regular-season games between these two teams, so there will be more opportunities for both teams to evaluate and scout each other.

In the long term, Sunday’s loss to Seattle doesn’t do too much damage to New York. If the Liberty continue to lose a few more games, it might cost them the #1 overall seed to Minnesota. But realistically, the Liberty are going to finish in the Top 2 or 3. And even if they don’t finish #1 at the end of the season, they have enough talent, depth, and championship pedigree on their roster that they could still easily win a Championship on the road away from Brooklyn. I think they were fine taking their “Scheduled Loss” in Seattle.

New York Liberty’s Impressive Depth

With all of that said, the players that did play for the New York Liberty tried hard to make me have to re-write that entire section of my article. Despite being without three starters, the Liberty nearly beat Seattle.

That is a credit to the depth of their team. It’s honestly a bit crazy to me that New York could be without Jonquel Jones, Leonie Fiebich, Sabrina Ionescu, and also Betnijah Laney-Hamilton (who is out for the season), and they still nearly had enough to beat what I consider a very good Storm team in Seattle.

Nyara Sabally would be a starter for a lot of teams in the WNBA, but she comes off the bench for New York. The same can be said for Marine Johannès. Rebekah Gardner and Kennedy Burke are two very solid wing players who can hit the three-ball, play great defense, and pull down some rebounds.

Leaving this game, I honestly wonder which team should feel better about what happened on Sunday. On the one hand, the Storm were the victors. They beat the defending champions by double digits. Seattle’s defense caused New York a lot of problems, forcing them into a season-high 21 turnovers. Seattle’s star players were better and took advantage of the fact that New York was missing some key pieces. Plus, the Storm got solid contributions from multiple bench players, including Dominique Malonga (6 points, 4 rebounds, in 7 minutes) and Zia Cooke (5 points in 7 minutes). There is a lot to like for Seattle, and they have to be happy about the win.

On the other hand, the Liberty were down by just one possession with three minutes left in the 4th quarter on the road with three of their starters missing the entire game. I’m sure they believe they would have won, maybe easily, had they had their full squad. Their defense did a very good job of limiting Seattle’s attack. The Storm shot below 40% in the first half and under 43% for the game. Some of that was Seattle missing some shots they’d normally make, but a lot of it was excellent defense by Natasha Cloud, Rebekah Gardner, Nyara Sabally, and Breanna Stewart. There are a lot of things that happened in this game that should give New York confidence about future meetings.

I asked Coach Noelle Quinn after the game what she learned about the New York Liberty and her team from this game.

“No matter who is on the court for them, they're a very good basketball team. We know that they were without 20-plus points today, but you throw in anybody on that team, they're very capable basketball players. They're top in a lot of categories, pace, efficiency, offense, defense, whatever it is. They're very sharp in all of that. But it's good to see that we can play to that level and exceed that level when it matters. They're tough, from Marine, today was Marine, her three-point shooting, go down the list, Stewie, Sabrina, Cloud. Like, they have a very good basketball team. Huge pride in understanding that a win against them, no matter who's on the court, matters for us,” Quinn told me.

If we’re counting moral victories, then I think both teams won on Sunday. But only one team takes the W in the standings, and that was the Storm.

Building a Contender

It’s starting to feel like something special is brewing in the Pacific Northwest, and it certainly isn’t Starbucks coffee. Despite some inconsistencies early on, the Seattle Storm are proving to be one of the better WNBA teams this season. Even though Seattle remains the 5th seed in the standings, one could make the argument that they have the best resume this season. No other team besides the Storm can say they’ve beaten both the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty. They are also one of just two teams to have beaten the Phoenix Mercury this season. Their five losses are all against playoff-quality teams. If they didn’t have their second-half collapse against the Dream, Seattle would have wins against each of the Top 4 teams in the league (Minnesota, New York, Phoenix, and Atlanta).

When looking for a championship team, the Storm have a lot of the necessary pieces to be that type of team. They have an elite point guard in Skylar Diggins, who runs the show. She is the team’s top scorer and passer, leading the team in points and assists.

They have an elite post player in Nneka Ogwumike. Ogwumike is one of the most efficient scorers the WNBA has ever seen. She is averaging over 17 PPG and leads the team in rebounding at 8.5 RPG.

Seattle has elite athletic defensive players in Ezi Magbegor and Gabby Williams. Magbegor is the team’s defensive anchor, protecting the rim and covering up her teammates’ mistakes. Magbegor is a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. She is currently ranked 3rd in the WNBA in blocks per game. Meanwhile, Williams leads the WNBA in steals at around 2.5 steals per game. Her unique athleticism allows her to leap into passing lanes, and she has a great nose for the ball. While both make their name on the defensive end, they are both capable scorers to boot. Gabby is having a career season, averaging around 14.5 PPG.

Around those four players, Seattle has built some quality depth pieces. Erica Wheeler is having one of the best seasons of her career. She’s been a spark plug for the Storm, that’s given them instant offense at times and hustle defense in other moments. Wheeler is another player who can create her own shot with dribble penetration and find open looks for her teammates. Veteran Alysha Clark is back as a 3-and-D specialist. Clark’s shooting 45% from beyond the three-point line this season and is a big reason why the Storm have gone from being the worst three-point shooting team last year to one of the best this year. Clark is still a great, disciplined defender and is capable of defending multiple positions. Younger players, Zia Cooke and rookie Dominique Malonga, have been able to make some plays off the bench. Cooke has improved her three-point shooting and is capable of creating scoring opportunities. Malonga can do a lot in such little time. She is consistently scoring 4-8 points and pulling down 3-5 rebounds in around 5-10 minutes of action.

Malonga’s growth and development will be key to Seattle’s success for many years to come. And that’s potentially the scary part for other WNBA teams. Malonga is likely to be better 20 games from now than she is today. And when the playoffs arrive in September, she will be even better. For now, she can fill in for Nneka and Ezi when they need rest. In 4-5 years from now, when she is just entering her prime, she could be dominating the league.

Whether they can win it all this year or not, it certainly feels like Seattle is building a contender. They have a lot of the necessary pieces a team needs to win the championship. And they are positioned very well for the future. Seattle owns three first-round picks next season. Two of those picks could end up in the lottery. And they’ll be getting Jordan Horston back next year to add to the team’s depth and defense.

Appreciating Greatness

I turned to Mazvita of CascadiaSports.Net during the game and told him that it is a pure joy to watch Nneka Ogwumike play basketball. Her shot from the short-to-midrange is automatic. It’s so smooth. There is a reason why she has played 14 seasons in the WNBA and has shot 50% or better in every single one of them. That seems improbable to say, but it’s the truth. To be that good for that long is a sight to behold. On Sunday, she made shot after shot. Ogwumike knocked down 12 of her 17 field goal attempts. She also made 6-7 FG and scored 13 points in the 4th and deciding quarter, with the game on the line.

Ogwumike reminds me a lot of Tim Duncan from the San Antonio Spurs. Duncan was not the flashiest player. He just did everything right. They called him the “Big Fundamental” because he played basketball the way it’s supposed to be played. Nneka is a lot like that. She doesn’t get a ton of media hype nationally. She may not make the crazy dribble crossover moves that “break” her opponent’s ankles. But she will run pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop to perfection. And she will kill teams every time they leave her open. She stands her ground on defense, boxes out, and gets rebounds.

Storm fans have been blessed to watch several great players over the years. Notably, their number one overall picks, Lauren Jackson, Sue Bird, Jewell Loyd, and Breanna Stewart, all left their mark on the franchise. Nneka Ogwumike may not have been Seattle’s #1 overall pick, but she’s their franchise player now. And every year that she plays in Seattle is a year that fans have the opportunity to witness greatness right in front of their eyes. Nneka deserves to be appreciated for the elite player and person that she is.

After the game, I asked Skylar about how Nneka’s greatness can be easy to overlook because she’s been doing it for so long. Diggins got very emotional in her response to me, sharing her love and appreciation for Ogwuike. It’s worth watching the video below (my question starts at the 6:30 mark) to see Skylar’s response. I will include the quote written below for those who prefer to read.

On Nneka’s greatness being overlooked and underappreciated.

Diggins told me, “Yeah, not me. I tell her every day. I tell her behind the scenes. I tell her in the training room. I tell her in the weight room. I tell her when she's doing Pilates. I tell her when she's on the court. I tell her when I'm walking into the gym. I tell her when I see her at the house. I came here to play with Nneka. And like what she does, you know, day in and day out, is special. And you shouldn't take it for granted. Like I love her, and it's deeper than just basketball. Who she is as a person is solid. It's a lot of stuff she can't say to defend herself. And it's a lot of shit that she takes on for our whole league. And so I stand in front of Nneka every day. And nobody around this league should take what she does for granted. I mean, she looks like she is still in her prime and continuing to get better and better. And I'm inspired by her personally, professionally. She's a way better woman than me. But I look up to her, and not only what she does on the floor, it's how she carries herself and how she makes us have a standard to ourselves with her experience. She's a champion. She's the most disrespected MVP in the history of our league. And every night she's breaking records. And not just, you know, it's milestones. Passing Tina Thompson today. Eighth all-time rebounds. Excuse me if I got that wrong, but it's just amazing what she's done. We celebrate her every day. It's a blessing to be on this team with her. And, you know, she's the first Ballot Hall of Famer. You know I love you, girl (said directly to Nneka).”

Post-Game Press Conference

If you prefer the audio-only versions, I’ve added them below.

Player Interviews

Coach’s Quotes

Notes:
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Thanks to Her Hoop Stats and Across the Timeline for being great resources.
Photo Credits: Seattle Storm/WNBA Photography

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