September 23, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Liberty start out strong in playoff series against Dream
'This was an opportunity for the Liberty to sort of sound a keynote on what they hope, plan, believe will be, ultimately, a march to the championship'
On the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, host Howard Megdal sits down with The Next’s New York Liberty beat writer Jackie Powell to discuss the Liberty’s 83-69 win over the Atlanta Dream in their first playoff game. Megdal and Powell discuss what went right for the Liberty in Brooklyn, like Leonie Fiebich‘s dominance and Courtney Vandersloot‘s big moment. They also anticipate the ways the Dream can challenge the Liberty as the series rolls on.
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Megdal and Powell start out the episode by discussing some of the Liberty’s decisions on Sunday afternoon, and the impression they hoped to make. “This was an opportunity for the Liberty to sort of sound a keynote on what they hope, plan, believe will be, ultimately, a march to the championship,” Megdal says. “Obviously, a long way to go in order to get there, and a lot of teams who are going to battle them, but truly going to be fascinating to see how and whether they’re able to do that.”
Later on, Megdal and Powell analyze what they think was missing from the Dream on Sunday. “I think … Tina [Charles] was ready, and the rest of the team wasn’t,” Powell suggests. “Rhyne Howard woke up a little bit more and was like, oh wait, I am the franchise player of this team, I have to perform better.” But that didn’t necessarily correct the course for the Dream in Sunday’s game.
To close out the show, Megdal and Powell debate what Atlanta needs to do to come out strong in Game 2 on Tuesday. “Allisha Gray is a big part of this Atlanta Dream office, no doubt,” Powell says. “There were some moments where Allisha Gray beat Sabrina Ionescu.” But, Ionescu held Gray for the most part. Perhaps if Gray can turn that around, Tuesday night’s story could be different for the Dream.
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