NEW YORK — There was a question that New York Liberty wing Leonie Fiebich got tired of answering. Fiebich, the 26 year-old German national, gives it to reporters straight. She’s honest. And she was growing impatient when it came to the different lines of questioning about a core theme: effort and heart.
“The biggest takeaway is that we’re not where we want to be,” Fiebich said prior to the Commissioner’s Cup championship game on Tuesday. “We got to put some work in, hopefully this week we can get some practices in. Get on the same page, and then just defensively, I don’t think we’re good enough. It’s effort plays, we need to get better.”
A lot of hows and whys kept coming her way. Follow ups were asked as a way to try to further understand why she and hear team went 1-4 on a recent road trip that resulted in losing to multiple teams that were below them in the overall WNBA league standings.
Being constantly reminded of losing can understandably lead to frustration, but there were many unanswered questions, especially when both Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart sent the same message after the team lost back-to-back games to the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries.
Jones didn’t want to be baited to make an excuse following that 99-88 loss on June 25. She was asked a question about how lineup changes and limited practice time to adjust to those changes might have been a factor in inconsistent play.
“I’m not about to come in here and make an excuse for us,” Jones said. “We just have to be better. That’s just what it is. It’s not about the reps, it’s not about playing time, it’s not about none of that stuff. It’s about having some heart and playing with some fucking heart.”
It was a mic drop moment from Jones, one that opened eyes. And then a few days later, during a period of time that included a team practice, the Liberty lost again 76-67 to the Golden State Valkyries. They were out rebounded and took 13 fewer shots than their opponent.
Stewart, who didn’t play in the game against the Storm, returned to the lineup. She delivered a very similar message while sitting beside head coach Chris DeMarco and Jones during their postgame press conference.
“Especially when things aren’t going our way, you know what I mean,” Stewart said in response to a question about Jones’ comment back in Seattle. “Can you play with heart or have great effort when things are going good? It’s really kind of the moments when you’re at your lowest, and this team, we’re obviously not a finished product, but this wasn’t a great showing, especially after coming off a loss.”
It’s always fascinating to see where Breanna Stewart’s head is at after loses. Take a look at how she responded to similar questions tonight after this loss against the Valkyries and then around a month ago after falling to the Fire. Peep the Brondello-ism in tonight’s answer.
— Jackie Powell (@classicjpow.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T03:33:36.933Z
What exactly does it mean when players talk about their team’s effort problem? What needs to happen? Players often point to playing harder and diving a bit more for 50-50 balls. The one statistical metric that is often alluded to in these conversations is rebounding, which is often a statical symbol of a team’s effort and motor. There’s a reason Angel Reese is one of the greatest rebounders the WNBA has ever seen.
There isn’t always a stat to paint the effort picture as clearly as possible, according to Fiebich.
“We have great players on our team that are these great hustle players, and it doesn’t show up on the stat sheet,” she said. “It’s the deflections, it’s like being in somebody’s shit, being like really disruptive. Being in somebody’s head, making big plays, but they really don’t show up on the stat sheet.”
Head coach Chris DeMarco diagnosed the effort issue a bit differently. He acknowledged the conventional wisdom about effort and how it’s about playing hard, playing physically and “diving on the floor” for those 50-50 balls. But in his eyes, it’s just as tactical as it is emotional and physical.
“It’s following game plans,” he said. “I think that’s probably what [the players are] referring to as well, is the compete level with your mind and making sure we’re executing what we talked about either coming out of huddles or coming into games.”
He expressed that execution hasn’t always come up short, but it’s been far from consistent.
It seemed a little bit familiar to what this team — albeit with a slightly different roster — went through in the second half of 2025. Injuries and multiple starting lineups being put out on the floor led to effort that didn’t appear up to par. The 2025 New York Liberty were consistently inconsistent. Too much change happened too regularly.
The page has been turned to 2026, and there has been a lot of change. Including a new head coach, whose philosophies could have to to do with inconsistency, just like any other factor.
How was Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon viewing the new-look 2026 Liberty after going up against Sandy Brondello‘s Liberty for years? She called the 2026 Liberty “more experimental,” and a team that plays much more with junk defense, referring to a type of defense that is a hybrid of zone and player-to-player defense.
“I think they’re a lot more intentional about rolling some of their big guards, and not just doing like, ghost-out actions or bingo slip out action, stuff like that,”she said. “But I think he mixes them up more defensively, probably more than they ever have been.”
So, are these complex defensive principles with a lack of mastery playing a role in the Liberty’s effort issues? DeMarco didn’t deny the hypothesis when pushed; instead, he explained why he’s doing what he is. He wants to be experimenting now so that when the team gets to games that will have much higher stakes (i.e. the end of the regular season into the playoffs) the players will be able execute different schemes. DeMarco stressed that sometimes these new schemes will work, and other times they won’t.
Breanna Stewart (30) , Sabrina Ioenscu (20) and Jonquel Jones (35) walk off the floor during their game against the Minnesota Lynx at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY on July 3, 2026. (Photos credit: Brandon Todd |New York Liberty)
He and the Liberty’s front office do not want the team to be foreseen, and those are goals that stretch back prior to DeMarco’s arrival. “We don’t want to be predictable, he said. “We don’t want to go into every game and be like this is all we’re doing.”
While variety is essential to the demands of the Liberty’s new coaching staff and their front office, there is opportunity cost at play here. Sabrina Ionescu has had to catch up after missing the first month of the regular season even though she was healthy and an active participant during training camp. Although she spoke glowingly in training camp about how simple DeMarco’s schemes were offensively, she too admitted that there has been some hesitation and confusion getting in the way of the team’s effort.
“I don’t think the reason of lack of those things is because we don’t want to,” she said. “I think it’s kind of a probably more leaning towards a lot of overthinking in terms of where we want to be and how we want to do things. So I think it’s more of a lack of, maybe, exactly knowing how we’re trying to execute and what we’re trying to do.”
She explained that playing aggressively requires confidence and a willingness to let go of “being right” all the time. “So I think for us, it’s more just understanding we need to err on the side of playing really aggressive and playing really hard, and not always trying to think about being right.”
The Liberty played with a different verve against the Aces at home for the Commissioner’s Cup championship. They out rebounded the Las Vegas 42-30 (which, to be clear, was more doable than it otherwise would’ve been since A’ja Wilson didn’t play). But it was an important step for a team that has struggled against opponents that, on paper, aren’t at their level, and the Aces without Wilson on paper aren’t.
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Liberty assistant coach Courtney Paris shared with The IX Sports that there was a significant emphasis on crashing the glass going into the game on Tuesday. She particularly pointed to Stewart’s performance where she finished the game with 11 total rebounds. She believed that the showing at the Cup Championship didn’t necessarily prove that the Liberty’s issues are fixed, but rather represented a growth opportunity.
Schematically, Paris explained what Ionescu was hinting at a little bit more. Rebounding in a zone defense — something that has become a part of the Liberty’s identity under DeMarco in 2026 — is an adjustment to rebound out of.
Within a player-to-player defense, players are “more in range” with a specific person to guard and box out when going for a rebound. She admitted that it is much harder to rebound out of a zone, but she also didn’t make an excuse. “It’s not something we’re going to be like, ‘Oh, we’re in a zone, we can’t rebound,’” Paris said. “Something we’re definitely trying to build on and get better at.”
Part of the struggles are schematic, and it’s a rational explanation to not be able to play as freely with that heart when there’s hesitation. But the Liberty took a step against the Aces, especially when the third quarter once again got in their way. As Fiebich explained, they focused on playing with heart and they were able to execute.
At first, Fiebich explained that the motivation behind playing for money, a trophy and a cause was a critical mental motivator. She also spoke about how she and her teammates were able to make more sound decisions in the fourth quarter compared to the third.
She also discussed playing with a feeling that “everybody knows.”
New York Liberty huddle together before their game against the Phoenix Mercury on May 28, 2026 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Photo Credit: Hannah Kevorkian | The IX Sports
“I feel like it’s just about going out there and doing it, taking extra step for your teammate,” Fiebich told The IX Sports. “And it just takes energy from you that you might not, don’t have that day, or you might not want to spend on that, but it’s impacting the play.”
Stewart had something to say about this feeling too. She talked about how it’s not a question if the team cares or not, but rather, about how much one cares. She wanted her teammates to understand how valuable every single possession is. It was the message that Stewart had for her team after defeating the Aces on Tuesday. It also was the message that both Stewart and Jones communicated during their postgame press conference following their 99-86 win on Friday night over the Minnesota Lynx.
When Stewart was asked about her 36-point performance postgame, she didn’t reflect on that all that long. She shifted her answer to the team’s progress. Stewart knows that the Liberty took a bunch of steps back on their west coast road trip, and she wanted her teammates and the fans to know that the only way now is forward.
“We want to have opportunities to really build,” she said. “And I think as players and really as a team, we’re taking ownership in that and making sure that every moment is important.”
Jones added to this sentiment moments later when responding to a different question, but she clearly wanted to focus on the team’s progress in her remarks, too. She acknowledged that the game against the Lynx for the most part went the Liberty’s way. The team shot almost 60% from the field, including 40% from three-point range.
“We just understand that this is the standard, this is the level, and now it’s about maintaining that,” Jones said. “It’s about making sure we’re doing all the little things in order to put that product out there on the floor.”
When Fiebich appeared postgame on Friday to reflect on a second straight win, she had some jokes. She didn’t want to be asked about the 50-50 balls again. But those “little things” that Jones spoke about will be under a microscope throughout the rest of the regular and post season. It’s up to the team’s performance to determine if Fiebich and her teammates have to answer those questions again, or if the effort will start to speak for itself.
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