In the first round, the New York Liberty made history, becoming the first #8 seed to beat a #1 seed, doing so in a dominant sweep. But just four days later, New York had the script flipped on them when the Atlanta Dream turned up the pressure to force 21 turnovers during Game 1 of the semifinals.
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Their collapse has led two WNBA analysts to wonder whether the energy they spent to send Minnesota home had finally caught up to them.
“I did notice that the urgency wasn’t there, maybe it was fatigue,” said Erica L. Ayala on the We Need To Talk podcast when host Alicia Jay asked if the Liberty looked “gassed” in Game 1.
“Everybody’s tired. At this point in the season, you gotta find that next level.”
New York was simply unable to keep up with Atlanta during their 92-82 loss at State Farm Arena. After finishing the first half leading 40-37, the Liberty completely fell apart in the third quarter. They let the Dream outscore them 32-15 in the quarter, while also coughing up the ball nine times over that period, giving the Dream the chance to completely flip the game.
New York ended the game with 21 turnovers, which the Dream converted into a massive 32 points, over a third of their total scoring. That effort was led by Angel Reese.
Reese, who was named the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year before the game, was the mastermind on defense for the Dream. She finished the game with four steals and three blocks, including two highlight-worthy swats on New York’s superstar duo of Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart. However, for New York, what makes this situation stand out is the timing of the collapse, something that Jay noted.
“In the last round, they meticulously dismantled the Lynx in so many different ways,” she said.
“That’s a lot to expend and to do. I just wonder if that carried over into this first game.”
New York seemed like they were on a warpath against the Lynx. In their sweep of the #1 seed, they saw contributions from all over their star-studded core: Breanna Stewart put up 34 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists in Game 1, and Jonquel Jones following that up in Game 2 with a 21-point, 13-rebound double-double. However, after the loss to Atlanta, the concerning details are beginning to stand out.
The minutes for New York’s core players have steadily risen over their three postseason games.
Superstar forward Stewart played 38 minutes in Game 1 of their first-round series, then followed that up by logging all 40 minutes in both Game 2 and Game 1 against the Dream. On top of that, Stewart already averaged 32.9 minutes per game in the regular season, the fourth-highest mark in the league.
Jones went from 26 minutes in Game 1 to 32 minutes in Game 2 over the first round. In Game 1 of the semis, she logged 32 minutes yet again. Ionescu has seen similar growth, logging 28 minutes, 33 minutes, and 34 minutes.
It seems like Jay and Ayala’s observations have some merit, because Jones revealed a very similar takeaway after the buzzer sounded in Game 1.
Jonquel Jones Points to New York Liberty’s Waning Intensity After Minnesota
The Atlanta Dream defense took a toll on the Liberty. The usually high-paced and fluid, ball-movement-based offense the team runs ground to a halt, and that stagnancy, as well as the building fatigue, was something Jones singled out in her postgame conference.
“I just think that there’s things that we can run to kind of get the ball a little bit more, a little more flow, a little bit more energy,” she said postgame.
“At times, we were kind of a little bit stagnant with what we were running… It wasn’t really anything that they were doing, and I think that our level of intensity that we had in the Minnesota series, I think that level of intensity dropped a little bit, and if we had that in Game 1, it would have been a different game.”
However, the team might have received a lifeline. During Game 1, the Dream lost their regular-season leading scorer, Allisha Gray, to injury. She has since been ruled out of Game 2, and that might be the boost the Liberty need to even the series.
With the second showdown set to tip off on October 7, only time will tell if Stewart, Jones, and Co. can improve their effort and get enough rest to surprise a shorthanded Dream squad.