Have Liberty Found Playoff X-Factor?

Tuesday was a celebratory occasion with all five regular Liberty starters (Natasha Cloud, Leonie Fiebich, Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart) sharing the floor together for the first time in over a month. But it also hinted at depth from below, as Meesseman headlined a shortened contingent that could come to define the Liberty's postseason endeavors.

Meesseman, Burke, and Rebekah Gardner were the three subs used on Tuesday, offering a potential look at the Liberty's eight-woman set. While Burke and Gardner have proven their WNBA worth as depth stars (with the Liberty pushing Burke for a Sixth Woman of the Year nomination), coming off the bench is revisiting unfamiliar territory for Meesseman, who has spent the past three years headlining Belgium's women's national basketball team's rise to prominence, culiminating in consecutive crowns at the EuroBasket competition.

But Meesseman, who was thrown into the seafoam fire upon her metropolitan entry earlier this summer, is ready to be a reliever in the clutch, a role she once played to critical acclaim during a prior championship trek with the aforementioned Mystics. Guiding the Mystics to their first championship alongside Cloud, who has commonly likened Meesseman's effort to that of a "dog," the Belgian breakout earned MVP honors in the five-game win over the Connecticut Sun back in 2019.

"We can play big. We can play small, play versatile," Cloud said of what a second-unit Meesseman can bring to a postseason trek. "If anyone's kind of not having a [spark], Emma can come in and she's a huge weapon. She's so smooth, she's so finessed. She really just makes this offense a lot better."

Working with a full metropolitan contingent for the first time since her arrival, as the Liberty had no names listed on their injury report for the first time since late May, Meesseman once took on the cape of relief: she contributed to Liberty's second period effort that saw them widen the scoreboard, her work evidenced by a plus-10 when she was on the floor.

When the Mystics began to creep back into the game with a 10-2 run at the tip-off of the third, Meesseman and Burke came back in to right the ship. Everything that left Meesseman's hands in the third wound up falling through the Brooklyn nets, as she sank two from the field was also hitting four singles. That restored seafoam sanity and allowed New York to end its regular season Brooklyn slate on a high note, all while building momentum for a postseason set to tip off in Phoenix on Sunday.

Jones, a member of that Connecticut club that fell to the Mystics in 2019 and a teammate of Meesseman's through international work, has come to appreciate sharing the same name on the front of their jerseys.

"I know that she's not just a great player, but she was also a great person, and she puts the team first," Jones said. "It's amazing that we have the opportunity to have her here and be a part of this. We all know that she's not a bench player, but she's willing to do that for our team, and it makes us stronger."

"When we kind of start [hot] and have a little lull, she can come in the game and change things so quickly for us. We understand that she's amazing and that we're happy that we're happy to see her in New York, in our jersey,"

Chided by Cheryl Reeve, the head coach of the league-leading Minnesota Lynx, for the "wrong decision" of signing with seafoam, Meesseman has since defended her selection with the simple claim that she's "happy" in Brooklyn. It would appear the feeling is mutual no matter where she resides on the depth chart.