As Game 2 began, it was obvious Breanna Stewart wasn’t herself. The Liberty star, knee brace strapped on, was hobbling up and down the court. Watching her push through visible pain was difficult, so much so that even the commentators started pleading with coach Sandy Brondello. “If New York doesn’t make a push here in the last three minutes of this quarter, I would not play her in the fourth. Save her for Game 3,” one said on the live broadcast. Stewie did sit out the fourth, but the conversation has since shifted: should she have even been playing at all?

Stewart sprained her MCL late in overtime of Game 1. But she was cleared to start Game 2 in New York. She managed only six points, two rebounds, and two assists in 20 minutes. A far cry from the 18 points and six boards she produced in the opener. Now, Stewart has a history of injuries, and she didn’t even participate in the practice. So, during the latest episode of Good Follow, Ros Gold-Onwude could not wrap her head around the Liberty’s decision to play Stewart.

“Stewie played honorably, but she didn’t look good. Like, forget about the stats. She played 20 minutes in the game, had six points. She’s clearly limping at points in the game. She wasn’t great on offense or defense, whereas she’s so strong on both sides,” Onwude said, further asking her guest co-host, Khristina Williams, if she was the only one thinking this way.

Giving her take on what Liberty head coach should have predicted, Williams gave a very measured answer, saying, “I don’t think that Stewie should have played because we knew that this game was going to come down to the wire and Phoenix coming into that game. I had, I was able to attend their practice, and they were coming to play aggressively… And so I think that given how New York Liberty played, it wouldn’t have made a difference whether Stewie played in game two or not because it was going to go and get pushed to Phoenix“.

These claims by the analysts are in direct contradiction to how Stewart felt, though.

Stewie and Co. saw it as a silver lining, thinking of Game 2 as a crucial test drive required to stay in the race. Stewart admitted it was “more of a mental barrier than a physical one,” explaining, “I was able to see how I felt … they wanted to run the high ball screen on me and really see how that went. And it worked with them today, but we’ll be ready for it.”  WE WILL BE READY FOR IT- that’s the underlying learning and the warning. Hence, Stewie remains upbeat for Game 3 after also confessing that “she didn’t feel any pain”.

Still, Onwude isn’t buying everything that’s said.

As Ros Gold-Onwude puts it, “I found myself throughout the day consuming reports about Stewie’s updates. Hearing that it wasn’t as bad as we thought, then hearing her discuss the injury and her saying like she’s going to play through it, and like that, it’s not really good though. And many of us are like, ‘No, this sounds horrible.'” Her plea was simple: Players are passionate, but it’s up to the management to be level-headed.

And at the end of the day, the WNBA reporter wanted them to make the hard call: “Sometimes that can be like a negative as opposed to just saying, ‘Stewie, we’re going to have you sit and maybe game three if needed, you know, or the next series we’re going to have you, but we’re going to hold this down.’ Because the Liberty has more than enough talent, I believe, to win without Stewie.” Unfortunately, Liberty lost the second game even with Stewart on the floor. With Game 3 just around the corner, it all comes down to making some hard calls.

The New York Liberty’s title defense now hangs by a thread. Walking into the game, they have to prove they are worthy of the title. Interestingly, ESPN still considers them the favorites to win. NY has a 59.4 percent chance of winning compared to 40.6 of Phoenix. But that will only happen if Holly Rowe’s warning is realized in this game.

ESPN’s Holly Rowe points out a bigger concern besides Stewart

ESPN’s Holly Rowe reported that Breanna Stewart was clearly limited in Game 2 after her knee injury. “Stewart was definitely restricted in her ability to move,” Rowe noted. She looked good on the early possessions, but Phoenix quickly tested her by repeatedly putting her in action. As Rowe explained, “she definitely was not the Breanna Stewart we’re used to,” especially on the defensive end.

One of Liberty’s biggest strengths in Liberty’s Game 1 win had been a connected defense, built on Stewart’s ability to act as a rover who “gets to the angles, disrupting everything behind the ball pressure.” Without her usual mobility, that safety net disappeared, and New York’s defensive rhythm broke down. So, Rowe had to warn the NY team, saying, “So, this is a team that’s going to have to rework what they’re doing defensively based on how Brianna Stewart can move”. 

Offensively, Stewart managed just six points, but, again, the bigger concern was the collective drop-off. Rowe pointed out that she could not recall “a game where both Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu, and Breanna Stewart all scored in single figures.” Jones finished with seven points, Ionescu with nine, and Stewart with six, an unusually low output for New York’s “big three.”

 And well, as for further updates on Stewie, Rowe had also said, “I did check in with some of the team personnel. They are in route to Phoenix right now and they said Brianna is walking well. Um, but she is presumably going to be sore from extending that energy last night. Uh, we will see. We’ll see if she’s able to go Friday and just how effective she can be“.

So, we’ll see.