The Liberty narrowly avoided what would\u2019ve been a historic collapse Thursday night, beating the Sparks 85-81 at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
The home team had built a 28-point advantage (69-41 lead) with 9:48 left in the fourth quarter and was sitting pretty.<\/p>\n
Until they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Sparks stormed all the way back, scoring 21 unanswered points to make it a seven-point game. Los Angeles got within one with 21.7 seconds left, but the Liberty held on to prevent their opponents from matching the biggest comeback in WNBA history.<\/p>\n
The Liberty managed to survive what Chris DeMarco called a \u201cfunky\u201d fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just kind of were on our heels a little bit,\u201d Sabrina Ionescu said. \u201cBasketball is a game of runs. Theirs came really late and I\u2019m glad the way that we were able to kind of weather the storm and continue to chip away, find a way to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days after an obliteration at Indiana, the Liberty looked to redeem themselves against a team destined for the draft lottery.<\/p>\n
For the first three quarters, the Liberty did that. They held the Sparks to only 41 points through three quarters and led by 26 entering the fourth.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Allen said, \u201cThat was the best I felt, we felt collectively, as a team defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Liberty played poorly in that final frame.<\/p>\n
The Sparks, losers of eight of 10 games entering Thursday, didn\u2019t wave the white flag in the fourth quarter, and the Liberty paid the price.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu (left) celebrates with teammates after scoring and drawing a foul during the Liberty\u2019s 85-81 win over the Sparks on Aug. 13, 2026 at Barclays Center. Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
Los Angeles \u2014 no longer featuring Kelsey Plum after the star guard was traded to Phoenix at the deadline \u2014 went on a 21-0 rampage to cut the Liberty\u2019s mighty lead in less than three minutes.<\/p>\n
Ionescu finally ended the 4:19 drought with a much-needed basket.<\/p>\n
But the Sparks didn\u2019t stop. They kept at it.<\/p>\n
With 3:50 left in a four-point game, DeMarco challenged an awkward collision which got Marine Johannes whistled for a foul.<\/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
It was unsuccessful, burning the team\u2019s final timeout.<\/p>\n
After the game, DeMarco said he \u201cthought it was worth the challenge,\u201d adding that the team thought Johannes didn\u2019t foul and instead got hit in the face.<\/p>\n
The Sparks made it a three-point game on three occasions over the final four minutes.<\/p>\n
Sabrina Ionescu, who scored a team-high 20 points, drives on Ariel Atkins during the Liberty\u2019s 85-81 win over the Sparks on Aug. 13, 2026 at Barclays Center. Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
Dearica Hamby\u2019s layup cut the gap to 82-79 with 57.9 seconds to go. A bad inbounds pass from Pauline Astier was recovered by Ariel Atkins and the Sparks called a timeout with 26.6 left.<\/p>\n
Rae Burrell made the layup to make it 82-81 with 21.7 seconds left.<\/p>\n
Ionescu knocked in a pair of free throws to build the Liberty\u2019s lead back to three. It was enough to secure the win.<\/p>\n
Jonquel Jones, who had a game-high 18 rebounds, battles for the ball against Cameron Brink during the Liberty\u2019s win over the Sparks. Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was funky,\u201d DeMarco said. \u201cWe started playing on our heels a little bit, basically coming into offense \u2014 not really running our stuff, sort of just moving the ball around, maybe some quick shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sparks outscored New York 40-18 in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Had they lost, it arguably would have been the Liberty\u2019s most deflating defeat of the season.<\/p>\n
Even with the win, the Liberty shouldn\u2019t be feeling too proud of themselves because the Sparks had no business being in the game that late.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe let go of the rope a little bit,\u201d DeMarco said. \u201cWe have to put together 40-minute games. \u2026 It was just funky overall. So I\u2019m just proud of the group for sticking together and \u2026 we were connected most of the night. Even in those moments, we didn\u2019t get disconnected. We were just having trouble offensively trying to find rhythms getting to the paint, waiting for each other, so defensively, we got some stops when we needed to and offensively we executed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Liberty narrowly avoided what would\u2019ve been a historic collapse Thursday night, beating the Sparks 85-81 at Barclays…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":999701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5336,2338,1488,405,403,1520,5226,5225,5228,5227,15534,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,232],"class_list":["post-999700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-sabrina-ionescu","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117092368032050022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999700","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=999700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}