With early absences from starters, the Liberty are pushed to experiment

A few days later, back in Brooklyn, center Nyara Sabally texted wing Leonie Fiebich, who is back in Germany preparing for the EuroBasket continental qualifying tournament, with a plea. “Please come back,” Sabally wrote to Fiebich.

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Jones returned to play on Tuesday night against the Atlanta Dream after missing the Saturday game in Indiana, as well as the team’s previous home game against the Sky. Fiebich is expected to be away from the team for a little while longer, potentially returning by the Liberty’s July 3 home game against the Los Angeles Sparks at the latest.

The players weren’t the only ones missing Fiebich. Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello mumbled to herself and to reporters pregame on Tuesday about how she wishes that the sophomore could be with the team right now, as the Liberty prepare for a weeklong road trip beginning Sunday in Seattle.

 “Where do I start?” Brondello exclaimed later when she was asked to elaborate on Fiebich’s impact. Her message was similar to what she had conveyed about Jones’s absence for two straight games. “She just impacts the way that we want to play in so many ways,” Brondello had said about Jones.

Between both Jones and Fiebich, the anchor of the Liberty’s defense — which allows the team to be able to switch on ball screens without a ton of worry sacrificing size or athleticism — is absent. The pair also had provided reliable perimeter shooting with Jones shooting 43.8 % from deep and Fiebich averaging 48% to start the 2025 season. The Liberty’s three other starters in Ionescu, Breanna Stewart and Natasha Cloud have relied upon Jones and Fiebich to reliably hit shots off the catch.

The numbers tell a story. According to PBP Stats, with both Jones and Fiebich on the floor, the Liberty have a 40.17 net rating, a 117.95 offensive rating and a 77.78 defensive rating.

With just Jones on the floor (without Fiebich), New York’s net rating decreases to 19.05, and the defensive rating balloons to 98.74. Minutes with both Fiebich and without Jones produce a 23.95 net rating, along with lower offensive (112.56) and defensive (88.61) ratings.

Regardless of these nuances, both players mark an insurmountable impact on how dominant the Liberty can be.

How has New York started this process of learning how to play without Fiebich, and also, at moments, without Jones? And what exactly led the team to their first loss, a convincing 102-88 victory for the Indiana Fever, on Saturday?

“There’s players we haven’t played with, continuing to change those around in practice,” Ionescu said on Monday before Tuesday’s game against the Dream. “I was with the second unit today, and getting familiar with playing with players that I don’t play a lot with … and I think that’s just going to continue to help us. There’s funky lineups, and I think everyone’s trying to figure out their role in that lineup with two starters down and obviously you could see it was a little bit rusty and not as fluid. And that’s part of what happens when you lose two big pieces of your offense and defense.”

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Liberty guard Marine Johannès added that, in moments without both Fiebich and Jones, there’s more of a responsibility on the bench to step up and play aggressively with more focus. Because of their absences, practice leading up to the Fever game was mixed up in ways it hadn’t been since the regular season began. And this left the team to improvise. This was evident when Brondello threw sets of players together like Rebekah Gardner, Sabally, Johannès, and Kennedy Burke with two starters like Ionescu and Stewart or Cloud and Stewart, to see what could happen.

Reintegrating Jones creates opportunities for Nyara Sabally

Coming off her decision not to join Fiebich in Germany for EuroBasket, Sabally was able to step in for Jones and, as a result, pick up the first three starts of her WNBA career.

Since returning from her two-and-a-half week absence in two games without Jones, and then two more without Fiebich, Sabally has averaged 9 points. She scores when she sees that the team needs her to, either by off-ball movement or when the ball is swung to her.

Against the Fever, Sabally contributed nine rebounds, a team high. Against better defenses, like Indiana and Atlanta, the Liberty began to miss more three-point looks and shoot with less proficiency. The lack of rebounds has been a source of worry for the Liberty throughout the 2025 season; they’re not exactly sure how they went from leading the league in rebounding percentage in 2024 to dropping all the way to ninth overall this season.

Dream head coach Karl Smesko had something to say about why a team that mostly returns their starters, including Jones and Stewart, isn’t rebounding the way they used to, even before the obvious absences.

“So if you shoot the ball exceptionally well, you get fewer offensive rebounds … and if you play great defense, sometimes you can force turnovers even before the team gets a shot, you can’t get a defensive rebound,” Smesko said. “So, I think they’re just really, really good. And sometimes, when you’re shooting it that well, then it becomes a situation where you just expect your teammates to make it, you’re not really crashing that hard. And now that’s a good problem to have, when you’re making shots like that.”

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But now New York hasn’t been making shots like that, as a result of these most recent games without Fiebich and Jones’ shooting, as well as the fact that the Liberty aren’t playing the worst defenses in the league anymore at this point of the season. The team has had to rebound the ball at a higher rate to stay in games.

Sabally recognized this against Indiana but also played with the focus that Johannès mentioned is vital for players who are used to coming off the bench. Against Indiana, Sabally took and made a 20-foot perimeter shot when New York was trailing in the second quarter. She attempted three other perimeter shots, but these were beyond the three-point line.

“She’s just playing free, being aggressive on the offensive end, which is really awesome to see, especially like getting her threes up,” Sabally’s position coach Brian Lankton told The Next. “Something we worked on a lot last year, but didn’t get attempts, and just seeing the early confidence that she has in shooting these open threes is awesome to see.”

While Sabally’s game isn’t Jones’, she was productive in her own way. Defensively Jones has better tools to protect the rim, but Sabally’s ability to blow up an offensive set along with hand-eye coordination that allowed her to lunge into passing lanes proved to be invaluable.

Burke, Johannès and Gardner work to carve out their roles

With Jones and Fiebich out, many opportunities have opened up for Burke, who plays minutes both on the wing and in front court for New York. During one stretch, she hit seven straight threes, culminating in the Liberty’s 85-66 blowout win over the Sky. But though her shooting percentages have begun to even out, her value doesn’t only come when she makes baskets. According to Liberty assistant coach Sonia Raman, Burke is toward the top of the WNBA when it comes to close-out offense. That could mean she scores at the rim on a close out, or that she makes a decision that leads to a basket coming off an opponent closing out on her.

Since Fiebich’s departure, Gardner has struggled to successfully keep up with some of the best offensive players in the league. When Cloud has needed a breather after guarding potent offensive talent like Caitlin Clark and Rhyne Howard, Gardner was a step slower on her assignments and is smaller in stature than Fiebich. As a result, switching is a bit more difficult for the Liberty.

While Gardner started the season positively, providing energy and athleticism especially in transition off the bench, it’s worth remembering that the teams the Liberty played earlier this season weren’t constructed like Indiana and Atlanta. These are two teams with at least two elite perimeter talents to keep track of, rather than just one. Could this be Gardner’s new normal, coming off an achilles injury? It’s still too soon to tell, but something worth keeping an eye on.

A player that has probably grown the most since Fiebich’s departure has been Johannès. Against both the Fever and the Dream, Johannès has picked her spots more than she did previously. She’s spent less time dribbling horizontally and then passing, and more time trying to create offensive opportunities when she finds openings. On Tuesday night, Johannès didn’t manage to hit one three, but she still finished the game with a +23, the highest plus/minus on the roster that evening.

Johannès’ first half against the Dream was rough. She turned the ball over three times and was a bit slow making decisions. But after talking out her frustrations with her teammates and Liberty director of player development Andrew Wade, her focus shifted from disappointment to how to help her team win the game.

“I was a little bit ashamed with my first half,” she said postgame.

But after a first half Johannès didn’t want to remember, she produced memorable defensive efforts and energy in the second. She was responsible for five of the Liberty’s second half rebounds, had a handful of deflections and was responsible for finding Stewart for a corner three that put the Liberty down just 5 points, after being down as many as 17.

Johannès won’t be Fiebich. She’s not over 6’4′ and she can’t defend almost any position like the German. But that doesn’t mean that Johannès can’t take on some of what the Liberty expect from a starting small forward. Especially in lineups where there are three guards, where Johannès is alongside Cloud and Ionescu, the Liberty need a player who is confident in her talent and athleticism, regardless of if the ball makes it into the basket.

With Jones working back from her sprained ankle and Fiebich still overseas for at least another ten days, the Liberty’s bench is becoming more confident and empowered right when it matters the most.

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Editor’s note (June 19, 10 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the Liberty’s defensive rating metrics in various situations. Those stats have been removed due to conflicting sources.