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Aces-Liberty rivalry shows just how quickly championship windows can shrink as injuries, chemistry issues persist

NEW YORK — The stakes were vastly different. The competition level was not.

The New York Liberty held onto their precarious slot as a top-four team with an 87-78 victory at Barclays Center on Tuesday, while their rival Las Vegas Aces dropped below .500, on the cusp of missing the postseason.

It’s a far cry from the elite battles of seasons past that determined which team held Finals home-court advantage over the other. Instead, this clash — lacking much magnitude and closing in on the All-Star break — drove home the fleeting nature of championship windows. The Liberty (13-6), favored to repeat, haven’t been fully healthy since their season-opening win over the Aces (9-10). Las Vegas, a juggernaut if not a modern WNBA dynasty, largely looks like a shell of itself.

Challengers and challenges await at every turn. A drizzle of adversity quickly becomes a storm. And it can happen at any time. The Aces hit another stumbling block when reigning MVP A’ja Wilson fell hard late in the first half and did not return with a right wrist injury. She returned to the bench in the fourth quarter with a wrap around it and a towel draped on top. Head coach Becky Hammon said she will have an MRI.

Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello understands well the challenge of rotations roiled by injury. She rolled out her ninth different starting lineup on Tuesday night, through no tinkering choice of her own. Point guard Natasha Cloud did not participate in the media viewing window of shootaround as a late addition to the availability report with a left hip injury she sustained in Sunday’s 79-70 loss to Seattle.

Brondello said two hours before tip that the swelling had not subsided and Cloud, whom they acquired in a trade to slide into Courtney Vandersloot’s spot, did not play. It is the 20th game missed by a Liberty starter, and the 31st overall, not including the loss of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton for the season.

“Just another wrench in the woodwork,” Brondello said.

The reigning champions are 7-0 with their starting lineup and 6-6 when missing at least one. Leonie Fiebich, who earned her starting role in the playoffs, missed seven games while competing at EuroBasket for Germany. Sabrina Ionescu sat out a game with a minor recurring neck issue. Reserve Nyara Sabally (knee) has been in and out.

The massive absence is center Jonquel Jones, their quiet double-double machine, leading the team in on-court plus/minus (14.1) by a large margin alongside Fiebich (11.4). Jones, the Finals MVP, missed two games in June with a right ankle injury and re-injured it weeks later. Out since June 19, she’s trending for a return after the All-Star break. The Liberty are 4-5 without her

“She changes shots at the rim and the ability to rebound and you realize how important she is to how we’re built,” Brondello said.

The Aces' championship build began in the late 2010s, when three consecutive No. 1 draft selections of Kelsey Plum, Wilson and Jackie Young developed into the league’s first back-to-back champions in more than two decades. Though unfair to call 2025 a rebuild, it’s proving to be a lengthier renovation than most might have expected.

“A lot of corporate knowledge walked out when we lost KP [Plum], Alysha Clark, Tiffany Hayes and Sydney Colson,” Hammon said ahead of tipoff. “It just takes time and not everybody reads at the same level, you know. So we’re trying to get everybody on that even playing field, and we’re just trying to talk each other through it and help each other through it.”

Plum’s request for a sign-and-trade broke up the core four, as well as the starting five that won the two titles. The Aces acquired Jewell Loyd in the deal, but the two-time champion hasn’t fully settled into her standard scoring performances.

Despite that sole change, the Aces starters are averaging 10 fewer points from their league-leading 71.4 points per game a year ago. They plummeted from the top third to the bottom third in average assists and field goal percentage.

“I’m used to this team — Chelsea, A’ja, Jackie — reading at a PhD level,” Hammon said. “That’s the kind of basketball players they are. And I think we’ve been reading more middle school level the last few games.”

Losing their top three reserves in Sixth Player winners Alysha Clark and Tiffany Hayes, as well as defensive menace Sydney Colson, has taken a toll. And after a three-peat failed at the hands of the Liberty in the semifinals last year, the Aces' two top assistants, Natalie Nakase and Tyler Marsh, left to begin their own head coaching careers in Golden State and Chicago, respectively.

It’s a “whole lot of teaching,” Hammon said, even this deep into the season and given their trade last week for forward NaLyssa Smith, who made her second start on Tuesday.

“Everybody’s still trying to learn each other, find that rhythm [and] trying to find that connectedness,” Hammon said. “Why chemistry is so valuable is you can’t make it overnight. It has to evolve with time.”

The Liberty-Aces rivalry came together quickly and won’t relent any time soon, no matter the stakes. They entered the night tied at 32 in the all-time series. New York leads, 10-6, in the regular season, Commissioner’s Cup final and playoff meetings over the last three years. Each won a 3-1 postseason battle; the Aces in the 2023 Finals and the Liberty in the 2024 semis.

“When you’ve reached greatness, you’re constantly going to be set to that bar and that standard no matter what happens,” Breanna Stewart said. “And they still have top-caliber players, and that’s why they’re getting it. No team is going to take them lightly. I mean, we’re not. We know how good they are.”

New York leaned heavily on Ionescu’s scoring (28 points) again on Tuesday night to lead a healthy dose of five double-digit scorers. The guard’s two free throws tied the game for an eighth time at 72-72 with 4:59 to play, and Stewart’s drive off a Fiebich assist delivered the ninth and final lead change of the contest. The Liberty started to pull away with Kennedy Burke’s and-1, while buckets from Ionescu and Fiebich gave them their largest lead at nine.

Brondello, one of the most even-keeled coaches in the league, carries her adage of never getting too high or too low regarding the Liberty’s health challenges. It is what it is, and her task is to prepare whoever is available. The season is long, and things change quickly within it.

“Hopefully, we can build some more continuity for when our whole team comes back,” Brondello said. “We know we're a pretty good team with our whole team.”

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