Storm Win Over Liberty Part 2

Additional thoughts, discussion, and interviews from Seattle's win to New York.

The Seattle Storm (4-15) finally got over the hump as they snapped their 11-game losing streak with an impressive 99-88 victory over the New York Liberty. And while the Liberty were without stars Breanna Stewart and Satou Sabally in this game, they still had plenty of talent on the court, including former MVP Jonquel Jones and multiple-time All-Star Sabrina Ionescu. Seattle outplayed and outhustled New York through the 40-minute contest to secure their victory in June. If you missed it, Danny wrote the game recap, which you can read at the link below.

For Part 2, I wrote about the similarities of having twin towers in New York with Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones compared to Seattle with Dominique Malonga and Awa Fam. I also discussed load management and how that may affect the WNBA more often as the league expands to 50 games. I had to give Marina Mabrey some love after her historic performance for Toronto against the LA Sparks. And I finished by talking about Seattle’s improvement and their will to win. I’ve also included the post-game audio interviews for both the Seattle Storm and the New York Liberty.

Stewie, Jonquel, Dom, and Awa

I was really hoping we were going to see Dominique Malonga and Awa Fam match up against Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones on Thursday night, but Stewart sat out of the contest to rest.

Even still, the pairing of Fam and Malonga is an interesting one, and the template that the New York Liberty have created is potentially one the Storm should look to follow. Admittedly, I’m pretty certain I wrote this same thing a year ago after the Storm selected Malonga 2nd overall, while also having 6’4” PF/Center Ezi Magbegor on the roster. We didn’t get a ton of that pairing last season, and we haven’t seen it at all this year.

But the premise remains. The pairing of athletic bigs who can step out and shoot the three and dominate inside the paint has been a recipe for success for the New York Liberty since 2023. That success has led them to two consecutive trips to the WNBA Finals in 2023 and 2024, culminating in the franchise’s first championship in 2024.

Dom is a good comparison to Jonquel Jones. They’re both 6’6” and just physically dominant. Jonquel is a bit bigger and stronger, but Malonga is certainly quicker. Dom really has the potential to be one of the most physical post players in the WNBA alongside Jones, A’ja Wilson, and Aliyah Boston.

I’m not quite ready to say Awa is like Stewie, but she can certainly stretch the floor as Breanna Stewart did in her prime. Fam is averaging 40% from 3-PT range this season, and in recent games, she’s shooting closer to 50% from long range.

It’s exciting to see what the duo of Fam and Malonga is going to become over the next handful of years. Against the Dallas Wings, the two combined for 55 points and 18 rebounds. On Thursday night against the Liberty, they combined for 35 points and 16 rebounds. Oh, and they shot 15-21 FG (71%).

The great thing about this season will be continuing to watch those two grow, develop, and get better as the season progresses.

Coach Raman talked about her young team after the game.

“It’s a young group, and every day that they step on the floor, they’re learning, they’re growing. They’re really committed to that and committed to that process. So nothing really beats game reps, and I’ve been saying that kind of throughout. And so there are things that happen in the game today that have happened in previous games that they’ve learned from and have been able to apply, and you can see the growth if you’re watching these games. And yeah, two 20-year-olds starting for us in our front line and just figuring it out as they go, it’s really impressive. They’re elite learners, and that’s something that is a skill.” Raman stated.

Load Management

Since Stewie missed the game due to rest, that leads me to my next thoughts. Be prepared to start seeing more “Load Management” in the WNBA in the upcoming years. This first started happening in the NBA as Tim Duncan got older. I still remember to this day the hilarious designation he received in a game from Coach Popovich, which read, “DNP - Old”.

Load management became a more common occurrence in the late 2010’s and into the 2020’s. Now it is fairly common in the NBA. It started to be abused by teams, so the NBA had to create a new policy. The Player Participation Policy, which requires players to play at least 65 out of the 82 regular-season games to qualify for end of the season awards like MVP, All-NBA 1st team, Rookie of the Year, etc.

The league and TV networks were not happy when healthy star players would sit out of games just to rest. And this particularly sucked for fans of people in cities like Portland, who only got to see LeBron James play once a year in their city, and then he would sit out and rest for that one game.

The WNBA is expanding to a 50-game regular season in 2027. These athletes are still playing in other leagues, overseas, Unrivaled, etc. And star players often play 32 MPG or more. A regular-season game against a non-playoff team (Seattle) is not that important, especially for the Liberty, who have the Commissioner’s Cup Championship game coming up against the Las Vegas Aces on June 30th. And so that’s why they decided to rest Breanna Stewart even though she was fully healthy.

We’ll have to wait and see, but I expect this to start happening more frequently as the league continues to expand with more teams and more games.

$MoneyMabrey$

In other WNBA news, Marina Mabrey had a historic performance against the LA Sparks on Thursday night. She tied A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage with the most points scored in a single WNBA game. Mabrey finished the game with 53 points on 17-28 FG and 9-18 FG from beyond the arc. She also went 10-12 FT from the line. The Toronto Tempo defeated the LA Sparks 125-97.

The 125 points were just behind the most points scored in WNBA history (127). The 127 points were scored by the Phoenix Mercury in a double-OT victory against the Minnesota Lynx back in 2010.

No player has ever made 10 three-pointers in a single game. Mabrey had a couple of difficult looks from beyond the arc in the game’s final two minutes, but wasn’t able to convert. Her nine made threes ties the record that has been reached by several other WNBA players, including Jewell Loyd, Rhyne Howard, Chelsea Gray, Arike Ogunbowale, and Kelsey Mitchell.

Mabrey became the first WNBA player to officially sign a million-dollar contract in league history after she signed a two-year deal worth $2.4 million in the offseason. Marina has a chance to earn her first WNBA All-Star appearance this year. She’ll try to help the Tempo (9-9) reach the playoffs in their inaugural season. I would say she’s definitely been worth the money for them.

Will to Win

The young Seattle Storm team would not be denied on Thursday night. They overcame every challenge the New York Liberty threw at them. That included some aggressive full-court and half-court traps in the 4th quarter. They finally snapped their 11-game losing streak. This moment felt like a long-time coming. Outside of their stinker down in Phoenix against the Mercury on June 20th, they’ve been very competitive in their last six games, dating back to their 10-point loss on the road to the Las Vegas Aces on June 8th.

You could really sense the tide was turning during their game against the Dallas Wings this past Monday. They answered and countered several of the Wings’ best plays and their runs. They did a great job executing during most of their trips on the offensive end. That is the type of growth you’re hoping to see this season. They’ve had bad moments where they let games get away from them. Where their inexperience cost them some games they had a legitimate chance to win. And now we’re seeing that they’ve learned from those mistakes. They are learning and improving.

If it wasn’t for Paige Bueckers going absolutely ballistic in the final minute of regulation and overtime, Seattle would have won that game. They really made several clutch plays down the stretch. Then it happened again in this game. While the Storm had outplayed the Liberty throughout the game, the veteran squad from Brooklyn did cut their double-digit deficit down to single digits on multiple occasions throughout the 4th quarter. However, Seattle would never relent. After Jonquel Jones made a couple of three-pointers, Awa Fam countered with an And-1. A 5-0 run by the Liberty was quickly answered with baskets from Jade Melbourne and Flau’jae Johnson. The Storm would not be denied their victory on this night.

Jonquel Jones talked after the game about being outhustled and outplayed by Seattle. When asked if the different lineups had an impact on the team, Jones downplayed that.

“At this point, we’ve had practice reps. We’ve had shootaround. I’m not going to come in here and make an excuse for us. We just have to be better. It’s not about the reps. It’s not about playing time. What it’s about is having some heart and playing with some fucking heart.” Jonquel stated.

One play that really stood out to me during the 4th quarter was when Flau’jae shot a corner three, missed the shot, but raced to collect the offensive rebound, and immediately scored on a putback layup. That’s the type of hustle that wins ball games. Johnson talked about making winning plays during the post-game press conference. I spoke to Flau’jae directly about that play and the team’s will to win.

“Well, I knew I was going to miss the shot, so I was like, ‘go get the rebound.’ At LSU, Coach Mulkey says rebound the ball. Sometimes when you don’t make it, sometimes the basketball gods will give you something. If you go get it, if I would have stayed in the corner, I wouldn’t have gotten the rebound, but I crashed and took advantage of the opportunity. I think being hungry. Coach Sonia, she wants us to rebound; she wants us to be aggressive.” Johnson told me.

“I had … (checks the box score sheet) … four offensive rebounds, which is great! I’m happy about that. But I try to do anything to win. Anything. I think just winning plays. I was telling Dom, let’s just make winning plays. I think we did that tonight.” Flau’jae added.

The young team certainly did that on Thursday night, and it resulted in an impressive double-digit victory over the New York Liberty.

New York Liberty Post-Game:

Player Interviews

Flau’jae Johnson and Dominique Malonga:

Coach’s Quotes

Coach Raman post-game:

Notes:
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Photography Credits: Seattle Storm/WNBA Photography
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