Jonquel Jones\u2019 return wasn\u2019t pretty at first.<\/p>\n
She started just 1-for-7 from the field. <\/p>\n
She committed silly fouls. She wasn\u2019t the imposing presence on defense she usually is.<\/p>\n
But it was just early rust. <\/p>\n
Jones shook off her rough start and was paramount in the second half of the Liberty\u2019s 98-84 win over the Caitlin Clark-less Fever on Tuesday night at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
Jones became a force in the paint. She began vacuuming rebounds at will. She affected shots with her size.<\/p>\n
Jones finished with a team-high 18 points on 5-for-13 shooting from the field along with nine rebounds.<\/p>\n
Her 3-pointer with 6:01 left in the game gave the Liberty a nine-point lead \u2014 their largest of the night up to that point.<\/p>\n
She was making her long-awaited return, having missed more than a month after re-spraining her right ankle. And she quickly made it obvious just how much the Liberty had missed her. <\/p>\n
The Liberty are now 9-1 this year with Jones, and 7-5 without her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s so versatile,\u201d coach Sandy Brondello said. \u201cYou have to scout her \u2014 inside, outside, it opens up the floor. \u2026 It\u2019s just the gravitational pull that she brings in. She can do everything for us at both ends of the floor. That\u2019s why we didn\u2019t play our best basketball when she was out.<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones, who scored a team-high 18 points, shoots a jumper during the Liberty\u2019s 98-84 win over the Fever on July 22, 2025. Jason Szenes \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cYou add her back in, you just see the difference, how it helps us with our overall game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberty had two All-Stars in Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, and a third in Natasha Cloud (skills challenge) participating in the week\u2019s festivities. <\/p>\n
Jones, their anchor in the paint, is a perennial All-Star and likely would have been again this year if she didn\u2019t miss so much time due to the injury.<\/p>\n
But it was one of their role players in Leonie Fiebich who joined Jones in saving the Liberty after the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones looks to make a move on Aliyah Boston during the Liberty\u2019s win over the Fever. Jason Szenes \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
While their usual leading faces were sluggish and sloppy early in the first game of the second half of the season, Fiebich carried them for large stretches.<\/p>\n
Each time the Fever looked to be making a run \u2014 and there were plenty \u2014 and begin pulling away, there was Fiebich with a clutch bucket. <\/p>\n
She finished with 17 points on 5-for-7 shooting from the field and perfect 2-for-2 from 3-point range along with five rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been playing amazing,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been telling her to be aggressive, and that\u2019s what we need from her. The choices that she makes and her basketball IQ are very high. There\u2019s rarely a time when she takes a bad shot or makes a poor decision. We just need her to continue to play her style of basketball and we\u2019re gonna continue to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 10 straight points in the fourth quarter, shoots over Natasha Howard during the Liberty\u2019s win over the Fever. Jason Szenes \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
The Liberty were on the ropes late in the third quarter, down 67-60 with 2:24 left. <\/p>\n
But they closed the quarter on a 9-0 to take a two-point lead into the fourth and promptly scored the first four points of the final period to extend their lead to six. <\/p>\n
Fiebich drilled a 3-pointer in the third-quarter run and hit two free throws in the early fourth-quarter spurt.<\/p>\n
Jones and the Liberty\u2019s other stars finally came alive and took it from there. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCovering the Liberty like never before\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Madeline Kenney’s Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Stewart woke up after a slow start of her own, recording 11 points in the second half to finish with 17 on 6-for-11 shooting. She also grabbed three steals.<\/p>\n
Ionescu helped them put the game away, erupting out of nowhere for 10 straight Liberty points in the fourth quarter as their lead ballooned to 13. She had been struggling with her shot up to that point.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s one of the greats,\u201d Brondello said of Ionescu. \u201cShe\u2019s one of our best players. What she did in the fourth quarter, we\u2019ve seen it time after time. She made some really big plays to help us separate, just a sign of a true professional. Doesn\u2019t matter what happens at the start, it\u2019s how you finish the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelsey Mitchell paced the Fever with 29 points but was quiet down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The Liberty were careless for too many stretches of the game, committing 19 turnovers. <\/p>\n
Many were avoidable, the product of ill-advised passes into traffic. But when a team is as stacked as the defending champions are, there is room for error to make up for it. <\/p>\n
And for the first time in a while, that stacked roster is pretty much entirely back together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonquel Jones\u2019 return wasn\u2019t pretty at first. She started just 1-for-7 from the field. She committed silly fouls.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[233,234,2338,1520,13726,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-85455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-caitlin-clark","9":"tag-indiana-fever","10":"tag-jonquel-jones","11":"tag-new-york-liberty","12":"tag-ny-sports-minute","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114901600622050657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}