4 Lessons Every WNBA Team Can Learn from the New York Liberty’s Title Run

It’s only fitting that a historic WNBA season ends with more history being made.

The New York Liberty were able to end their 28-season championship drought on Sunday night, capping off a campaign in which they finished with the league’s top record, best offense and third-best defense.

We were blessed with a tremendous Finals matchup between the Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx, two of the best and most versatile groups we’ve had in recent memory. Naturally, the series went the distance: a full five games, two overtime showings, 20 total lead changes and a ton of series-shifting plays in between.

Naturally, teams will be looking to chase, and ultimately dethrone the Liberty next season. While they won’t be able to press the “Add Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones” button for instant success, there are things that can be learned from the Liberty’s title run.

In order to compete with, or flat-out defeat the Liberty moving forward, you’re going to need some heft in the frontcourt. More than that, there’s a level of skill needed up front to execute multiple things on both ends of the floor.

The Liberty are naturally the high end of this, spearheaded by the (Finals) MVP tandem of Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones. Stewart can and has been moved all over the floor offensively, used as scorer and playmaker on all three levels.

Jones is a post demon (complimentary) and a versatile screening partner, able to cause problems as a screener and pop threat in ball screens. Her playmaking growth (career high 3.2 assists, 18.3 assist rate) made running the offense through her a viable, floor-bending option.

Defensively, the Stewart-Jones tandem caused headaches aplenty. Stewart was able to take on whatever matchup was asked of her throughout the (post)season. Jones was a steady disruptor at the rim, but crucially held her own when asked to play higher on the floor.

Their ability to play off each other popped throughout the year. Stewart could erase gaps at the top of the floor, and do so with a level of aggression because she knew that Jones was behind her to clean up any potential messes. Jones could switch with ease, knowing that Stewart and her massive wingspan could provide similar emergency relief.

Per Second Spectrum, when Jones defended a ball screen outside of drop coverage—switching, hedging, full-on blitzing—opposing offenses generated a paltry 0.84 points per possession. Stewart was right there with her (0.83) in terms of stinginess.

Crucially, both players logged at least 200 of those reps this season—joining a 27-player list that also included the Lynx’s duo of Napheesa Collier (0.73) and Alanna Smith (0.76).

You could always feel when the Stewart-Jones tandem was on the floor. That was exacerbated whenever they faced teams with frontcourt options they didn’t trust as scorers. Throughout the Finals run, we saw the Liberty treat the Dream’s Naz Hillmon, the Aces’ Kiah Stokes and the Lynx’s Myisha Hines-Allen as help-off points to muck things up elsewhere.

To close the gap on the Liberty, you either need star talent up front or trustworthy-enough players to make their help decisions more difficult.

Honestly, Fiebich could’ve gotten a paragraph in the “skilled size” section. There aren’t many 6’4″ wings in the league, and her ability to fulfill that role at a high level on both ends help flipped the title race in New York’s favor this season.

But more than her actual stature, her skill set is what teams should be looking to find in abundance. On a basic level, there wasn’t anything the Liberty couldn’t ask her to do.

Defensively, Fiebich defended at a high level for pretty much the entire season. The Liberty’s ability to further unleash Stewart as a roamer was partly a result of Fiebich’s willingness to defend top perimeter options on the other team.

Oh the glamour end, the three-point shooting popped all year. Fiebich shot 43.3 percent from deep during the regular season, and somehow ramped that up to 52.1 percent on higher volume during the postseason.

There was a level of versatility to those looks. She filled lanes in transition, bombed away on the weak side of actions, took triples after coming off screens and even created her own when teams looked to switch or duck under her screens.

When tasked with initiating offense or running ball screens, she could do so. Per Second Spectrum, the Liberty generated offense at an above-league-average level when Fiebich brought the ball up the floor (1.05 PPP) or ran a ball screen (0.94 PPP). If teams tried to stash smaller players on her, Fiebich was willing to slice into the post and get buckets or draw fouls. She was a willing on and off-ball screener in an effort to feed mismatches to her star teammates.

While Fiebich could fill multiple roles offensively, the important part was how quickly she made her decisions. Because she didn’t waste time moving off the ball, attacking the defense, or moving the ball to the next station, Fiebich was able to create and maintain advantages at a high level.

It should come as no surprise, then, that she was a plus-minus monster: Including the postseason, the Liberty outscored opponents by 368 points in nearly 1200 minutes with Fiebich on the floor this year.

If Game 5 of the Finals taught teams anything, it’s that role players can save—and even punctuate—their season in key moments.

On a night when Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu didn’t have it—the two shot a combined 5-of-34 from the field—they were obviously grateful that Jones was there to pick up the slack in key moments.

They were also incredibly fortunate to get important minutes from Fiebich and Nyara Sabally, who chipped in with 13 points apiece. Sabally’s defense was impactful throughout the Finals, and she had a knack for punctuating possessions with drives (and drawn fouls) in timely moments.

Zooming out, Sabally’s growth was paramount. It allowed the Liberty to maintain a level of versatility and switchability whenever Jones was off the floor. Head coach Sandy Brondello also felt empowered to play Sabally and Jones together at times; including the postseason, the Liberty outscored opponents by 44 points in the 95 minutes Sabally and Jones played together.

Fiebich was a two-way force this season, but the healthiest version of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was even better. Her ability to defend—and extend that defense for full-court pressure looks—was incredibly important, as was her spacing, post-ups against mismatches, and cutting. Kayla Thornton enjoyed career-best shooting during the regular season (35.7 percent from deep) but thrived defensively even when her shot disappeared during the postseason.

Courtney Vandersloot had a mostly seamless transition from starter to super-sub, with her playmaking, drives and knack for big stops defensively popping throughout the run.

Your core will lead you to the dance, but the ability to mix and match personnel will dictate how far you can go. The biggest change for the Liberty this season was an even greater ability to press different buttons depending on game and matchup context.

It isn’t sexy, but it’s hard to overstate how important glass cleaning was for the Liberty—and how important it is for the teams chasing them to close in that gap.

The Liberty were the W’s best rebounding team all season, grabbing a league-high 52.5 percent of available rebounds. They generated extra chances on the offensive glass, ranking fifth in offensive rebound rate (29.9) during the regular season.

It’s an incredibly “duh” thing, but the Liberty’s defense was more formidable because they were able to force misses and actually end possessions—they grabbed 74.3 percent of their defensive rebound opportunities during the regular season, edging out the Las Vegas Aces (74.0) for the top spot in the league.

Every rebounding figure improved for the Liberty during the postseason, and it was especially loud during the Finals. Against the Lynx, the Liberty grabbed nearly 55 percent of all available rebounds. Their offensive rebound rate (34.9) would’ve been the league’s best mark during the regular season. Their defensive rebound rate (76.3) would’ve both shattered their regular-season mark and flirted with the 2021 Connecticut Sun’s single-season record (76.6).

If the raw totals are more of your thing, there’s this: The Liberty out-rebounded the Lynx 196-154 during the Finals. There was a 54-25 edge on the offensive glass for the Liberty in this series. Going plus-29 on the offensive glass is an easy way to mitigate turnover issues (79 through five games for the Liberty) and win the possession battle anyway.