Every New York Liberty brief The Playbook has printed, newest first — 5 editions so far. Plus the 1 Ledger call this paper put in print on them, graded. The Archive runs two days behind the paper.
Liberty fans heading to State Farm Arena on Sunday are walking into a genuine test of identity — not just seeding, but whether this team's momentum carries weight against the Eastern Conference's steadiest club. On balance, The Playbook predicts the Liberty win in Atlanta, despite the 65-83 home loss to the Dream on September 23rd.
That September loss is the relevant reference point, and it cannot be ignored. Atlanta arrives at this semifinal having won 30 of 44 regular-season games and currently riding a five-game winning streak — a club operating at the top of the Eastern Conference with the habit of closing. But the Liberty who lost that September game were not the Liberty who swept Minnesota. Per The Guardian, Jonquel Jones posted 21 points and 13 rebounds in the closeout win over the Lynx, with Breanna Stewart adding 21 and Sabrina Ionescu contributing 18 — a three-headed performance that Atlanta, for all its consistency, has no obvious answer to. The loss of Satou Sabally and Elizabeth Balogun narrows New York's depth, and that is the number that matters most on Sunday: can three scorers sustain what five built?
Liberty fans making the trip to Gateway Center on Sunday are walking into the most consequential game this franchise has played in years. That said, the case for New York is real: per The Guardian, Jonquel Jones posted 21 points and 13 rebounds in the series-clinching 87-71 home win over Minnesota Lynx, with Breanna Stewart adding 21 and Sabrina Ionescu contributing 18 — a performance that made the Liberty the first eighth seed in the league's 30-year history to eliminate a top seed. Co-owner Joe Tsai declared them the best team in the playoffs, per the NY Post. The noise is understandable. It is also the kind of confidence that flatters a team right up until a 30-14 opponent tests it. What Sunday actually measures is whether New York's offensive rating from the Lynx series — built on three players combining for 60 points in a closeout — holds against a Dream defence that just swept Washington. The absences of Satou Sabally and Elizabeth Balogun narrow Chris DeMarco's rotation at the worst moment. Atlanta at home, on a five-game streak, is the first real wall.
The standard New York Liberty set against Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday was the one that matters: an eighth seed eliminating the top seed in a two-game sweep. Per The Guardian, Jonquel Jones finished with 21 points and 13 rebounds, Breanna Stewart added 21, and Sabrina Ionescu contributed 18 — three distinct offensive roles operating in the same game, which is what Chris DeMarco's rotation has been built around all season. The mechanism was role clarity under pressure: Jones anchoring rim presence, Stewart creating off movement, Ionescu finding rhythm as a volume shooter. This paper called the win on Tuesday and it landed — 87-71. The cost to count, per CBS Sports, is history: the Lynx are the first No. 1 seed eliminated by a No. 8 seed in the league's 30-year existence, and New York produced it without Satou Sabally and Elizabeth Balogun, both still out. The next concrete test is whether that same role distribution holds Sunday against the Dream/Mystics on the road.
New York Liberty sit 4.0 games behind in Eastern Conference — within striking distance with a 26-18 record — a 59% win rate across 44 games.
Coming off a win — the momentum is pointing in the right direction.
The next game is at home against Minnesota Lynx. Every game at this stage of the season carries playoff implications — execution on both ends of the floor will be the deciding factor.
Minnesota's Lynx hold a 33-11 record — a 75 percent win rate — entering Sunday's first-round best-of-three at Target Center, and New York, seeded eighth at 26-18, travels there as a clear underdog. That gap is real: the Liberty closed the regular season with back-to-back home losses to Atlanta Dream — the 84-95 loss on September 21 and the 65-83 loss on September 23 — surrendering a combined 178 points across those two games. Per the NY Post, the series is a rematch of the 2024 WNBA Finals, and New York has spent the season adjusting lineups and experimenting with defensive coverages under a first-year head coach, a process the Post describes as 44 games of figuring themselves out. Compounding that: Satou Sabally and Elizabeth Balogun are out, and the Post reports Breanna Stewart sat out the regular-season finale with left knee soreness, though she is expected to play Sunday. A depleted rotation against the West's top seed, on the road, is the current verified picture. Whether Stewart's knee holds across a short series is the one variable that could change the calculus.