The return of Jonquel Jones allows the Liberty to play ‘bossy’ again

She stepped on to the floor to warmup with a pep in her step while also focused on the moment. She made sure to fist bump the Barclays Center security employees when she arrived on the floor for her warm up and then when she left.

The group of fans that arrives to watch the players warm up were all clamoring for Jones to sign autographs and take selfies. Jones, who often stops to pour her attention into the fans, just smiled and waived and went back through the Liberty’s tunnel to get back to the locker room. She needed that extra time to focus.

When Jones was announced as a part of the starting lineup for the first time in over a month in front of the Barclays Center home crowd, the tide of the noise picked up noticeably within 17,365 in attendance. Fans stood up to give Jones an ovation, and fans lifted their Jones signs higher to hope that she or the ESPN film crew could catch the verbiage.

The Liberty’s first offensive score of the game was driven also by intention. The intention was simply to establish Jones early and make sure her importance to the offense took center stage.

Cloud threw an overhead pass into Jones in the paint. She was met with Aliyah Boston help while Jones was posting up on a smaller defender in Sophie Cunningham. Jones flicked the ball up to Leonie Fiebich on the right wing to steady the offense. Fiebich put the ball on the floor and drove, allowing for Jones to leak out to the right corner pocket. Fiebich found her and Boston was too late to contest by the time Jones caught and shot the basketball. The Liberty were on the board.

This approach wasn’t always as obvious especially when Jones and her front court partner and Breanna Stewart first came to town. A lot of chatter early on into Jones’ New York career was about how head coach Sandy Brondello needed to make sure she was involved. There was no question about that on Tuesday night.

“It was very intentional just to make her feel present and get her going early,” guard Cloud told reporters postgame. “But that’s going to consistently be it. It was that way to start the season. We had to adjust and pivot without her. But that is always when you have an MVP caliber player, you throw the ball into her.” 

That first score and the awareness that Jones had to be patient and move the ball until she was freed up from beyond the arc in the right corner pocket was exactly the moment where Brondello and Leonie Fiebich knew that Jones was back and that her hard work behind the scenes for the past month while rehabbing from a sprained right ankle had paid off.

Jones told reporters during a team practice before the All-Star break all about how hard she had worked for the past month trying to rehab her sprained ankle and get properly conditioned to return to play.

Her days meant getting treatment in the training room to start, lifting and then engaging in individual workouts with head of player development Andrew Wade. After her workouts, she would return to the training room to get more hands on treatment done on her right ankle to make sure the swelling was down and the ankle was continuing to heal.

“I’m doing more stuff in the gym right now than I would do if I was playing,” she said. “I can’t wait to get back on the court.”

But before she could officially get back on the court on Tuesday, she had one critical phase of her rehab process left. She contemplated staying in Brooklyn to continue her ramp up process which included more live action play and conditioning work. But in the end after not being named an All-Star, Jones wanted to be able to reset her mind. The Bahamas, her home, were calling her.

Jones took a small group of the Liberty’s training and basketball operations staff with her back home. This contingent was led by Wade and included assistant video and scouting coordinator Parket Lovett, Noah Shy, another basketball operations staffer that serves as a lead practice player and rehabilitation lead and team physical therapist Joelle Muro.

Jones mostly had mornings off during her few days away from Brooklyn. But once the summer camps cleared out of the gym she and the staff used, she was ready to do all of her stretching, lifting, work with a 1080 machine and get treatment from Muro before being able to practice with Wade and the staff.

“Look, I think it says a lot about this organization,” Brondello said about the trip some of the staff took with Jones to the Bahamas. “We’re player first, we always want to do what’s best for the players on and off the court, and it was a no brainer. It’s like, okay, JJ is an important part of what we’re doing. She needs a break, and going home is always nice for them. Let’s take people with them. They get to hang out in the Bahamas, so I think they’re not too disappointed about that. But yeah, we’re committed to getting her back on court and supporting her wherever way we can.” 

This trip was a pivotal part of the reason why Jones was able to produce a 18 points, nine rebounds and two assists in 22 minutes of play in the Liberty’s 98-84 win over the Caitlin Clark-less Fever. It wasn’t a perfect performance by Jones and the Liberty by any means. New York trailed early by as many as 8 points in the second quarter. Jones missed shots she routinely makes near the basket and wasn’t her typical efficient self. She wasn’t always in position to protect the rim either, but what stood out was how well she was moving on the floor without any hesitation.

Postgame she told reporters that she rates her conditioning at around an eight out of ten.

But like in the 2024 WNBA Finals, Jones knew exactly what buttons to push and when to make sure that the Liberty were in position to get their first win coming out of the All-Star break. With 6:12 left in the fourth quarter and the Liberty only up by two scores, Sabrina Ionescu drove past Boston into the paint and without looking found Jones wide open on the right wing. She caught it and shot it and Lexie Hull‘s contest didn’t mean much over Jones’ outstretched arms. She sank her third three of the game, gave the Liberty a 79-70 lead and trotted back strumming an air guitar before the Fever called a timeout.

“I think that she was itching to get back on the court, especially all of last week,” Breanna Stewart, who had a quiet 17/4/6 stat line, said postgame. “But just happy for her to be like, feeling good, physically, mentally. Sometimes injuries are tough after you’ve, like, re-injured it again. And I could just see her joy of playing.”

While Jones didn’t have a song in mind during that celebration, she was inspired by something she did while lineups were announced prior to tipoff. When Ionescu was announced to the crowd as the 2025 three-point contest winner, Jones strummed an imaginary guitar to celebrate that. “[It] just came back to me after I hit that shot,” Jones said. “And it just felt like a lot of fun. I just decided to have fun and not be too up tight. I’m happy I did it.”

For Ionescu playing with Jones is “like riding a bike.” Jones had been out for a month, but she still knew exactly where to find her and Jones knew that she needed to be ready to fire away on the catch. But playing with Jones is also another ounce of emotional support and comfort for Ionescu, and that played out in a meaningful way on Tuesday night.

Ionescu began the game struggling. Her shots weren’t falling and her decision making wasn’t as pristine as it could have been as she chose to go one-on-one rather than moving the ball. Brondello benched her midway through the third quarter. But then she helped seal the game for the Liberty by scoring 10 of her 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting including two threes in the second half. Jones played a role in this. Jones told Ionescu before the fourth quarter that she needed her to be the “nail in the coffin” for the Fever.

“Anytime she has the ball in the open court, I’m setting early screens to kind of get her open,” Jones said postgame. “And then she hits that first shot off a drag [screen] and I’m just like, ‘I told you,’ and then she hit the big three, and then I ran to her and was like ‘I told you’.”

For Ionescu, Jones being out allowed her to see from more of a bird’s eye view how opponents were guarding her teammates. Ionescu thought it was integral for Jones to speak up. For Ionescu it wasn’t just about Jones being locked in on her own game, but also being in tune with what the team needed. Being out allowed Jones to realize if she didn’t already know how much she truly takes the Liberty from being an excellent team to potentially one of the greatest in WNBA history (and this of course is all prior to Emma Meesseman‘s arrival).

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Fiebich notices Jones’ dominance and confidence on the court but also on the bench as well by pouring into her teammates. She reflected on what Jones means to this team while sitting next to Brondello and Jones postgame. Fiebich is often stoic and to the point in her answers, but let loose on this one.

“[Jones is] a great player,” she said. “I love to be on the floor with her. Everybody on this team loves it. I’m just so happy for her to be back and be healthy and for us to be bossy on the court again.” 

It was hard to know at first what Fiebich said. Bossy? But then Jones clarified as she was leaving the press conference room. “[Fiebich] calls me bossy,” Jones said. It’s an inside joke of theirs. The shoe fits. Jones’ “bossy” play leads to the team’s confidence and assertive play.

But playing “bossy” didn’t mean Jones wasn’t going to engage with the fan base that was so happy to see her. Once again, she was intentional prior to leaving the floor after her team won. She accepted a pride-themed hat from a fan, and made sure to sign all the autographs she could before meeting her team in the locker room.