Misfortune and subpar performances keep affecting the Liberty as of late.
But the defending champions feel no need to panic — even before the team’s upcoming four-game, 10-day roadtrip with the possibility of not having Jonquel Jones available for it.
“We gotta be some road warriors. I think this is when adversity hits. I think your purpose is really challenged,” Natasha Cloud said after Thursday’s loss to the Phoenix Mercury. “We know where we want to be at the end of the season, and so we’re going to go through these growing pains early. You never want to peak too early. That’s always been upsetting. So we’re just going to keep chipping away and making sure that we’re getting better. And obviously, with the adjustments of our roster and people out and people in, we’re just going to continue to get better. I just want to get some wins on this road [trip].”
Cloud, the Liberty’s self-appointed vocal leader since her arrival to Brooklyn, emphasized there’s “no panic” after the team saw Jones re-injure her right ankle and later drop just the second game of the season due to some lapses on both sides of the court.
Jones previously missed two games due to that same hurt ankle and returned Tuesday against the Atlanta Dream — a matchup that saw the Liberty fall into a 17-point deficit but regroup in time for a five-point win.
As the team packed their bags on Friday for Sunday’s matchup against the Seattle Storm, there was no clear timeline for Jones’ return. While the team departed for the first extended road trip of the season, Jones stayed in New York to undergo further testing and evaluation on the right ankle, a team source confirmed to the Daily News.
The team is optimistic the 6-6 star could join them ahead of the first game of the road trip.
The Liberty, though, would be wise to be cautious with Jones in her second stint with an ankle ailment. The severity is still unknown but should Jones be unable to play for part of the road trip, the Liberty would be without their top rebounder and two-way engine.
“Losing a player like JJ, it really does deflate you because she just came back. She’d been working her ass [off] to get that ankle right, and then it happens again,” Cloud said of the team’s double-double machine. “So we don’t know when she’s going to be back. We’re going to just try to protect and step up for our dog. But what needs to happen is we need to rebound, and we need to supplement those points that she does give this team.”
No JJ could result in more struggles for the Liberty.
The Mercury won Thursday’s rebound battle, 42-32, with Jones out for the majority of the game following her injury. And without her defensive presence, the Mercury converted on timely buckets down the stretch to secure the victory.
Mercury rookie Monique Akoa Makani finished with a career-high 21 points while Alyssa Thomas dominated below the arc with 18 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in 27 minutes.
The Liberty were unable to get stops that helped them in most wins to start the season. And the reliable Sabrina Ionescu-Jones pick-and-roll tandem was unavailable following the injury. On Thursday, the Mercury had success blitzing Ionescu on screens, a strategy more likely to yield positive results with Jones off the floor.
“I mean, I was trapped. So it’s pretty tough when there’s two on the ball every single time you come off a pick-and-roll instead of really be able to find the open person,” Ionescu said when asked why the team wasn’t able to be aggressive on screens at the point of attack.
“I mean, they’re a great defensive team. They’re long, they’re active, they bait you into passes. And obviously, I think that’s something we didn’t really execute well on, was their traps making everything difficult. Obviously, they watched the last few games of us being able to just come off and pick and choose what we wanted to do offensively, and their adjustment was trap, blitz the ball screen and make the next pass really difficult. They did that really well, and I think that’s something we’ll learn from.”
And it’s a strategy other teams can pick up on too with Jones out, beginning with Seattle, who entered Friday fifth in defensive rating. The rest of the teams on the road trip also are featured in the top half of the WNBA in that category: June 25 at Golden State (6th), June 27 at Phoenix (3rd) and June 29 at Atlanta (4th).
But per team leader Cloud, there’s no need to worry.
Everyone else just has to pick up the slack.
“So again, we have everything that we need in this locker room,” she said. “It’s that next woman up mentality and everyone just being confident. We have bigs here. We have people that can step in and step into a role so we’re going to be good. It sucks always. It always sucks when a player gets injured, but that just means everyone needs to do a little bit more, including myself.”
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