Liberty Have Secret Ingredient Heading Into Playoffs

But the Liberty (27-17) can indeed boast one of the most valuable traits sought-after in a championship job interview: experience.

"Youu have to lean into the experience we've already gained from the players that were here last year," Brondello said. "Four of our starting five, they've been here, and they found the chemistry over the last two years and [know how] to win. Now we added [Natasha Cloud] in, and I think she's feeling comfortable. She hasn't missed as many games as some of the others, so she's feeling comfortable because we want to put the ball in her hands, but she's going to be off the ball too. How we play her as we move forward, knowing we have three handlers back with [Breanna Stewart] involved in that as well, you lean into those. They're experienced players. They've all won a championship. You lean into that, I think that helps in these moments as well."

As noted by the WNBA in the calm before the postseason storm, the seafoam savants have amassed 252 combined games of postseason experience among them, the most among the Association's fateful eight. All but four of the 12 women on the Liberty roster have earned a WNBA championship ring, with Breanna Stewart's fingers bearing three alone after two came with her from the Pacific Northwest.

Half of the dozen partook in last year's metropolitan madness against Minnesota while Cloud and Emma Meesseman previously prevailed as members of the 2019 Washington Mystics. Meesseman and Stewart have three series MVP awards between them while Jonquel Jones joined such a sisterhood last fall. The outliers have earned their own shared of hardware through Olympic medals and assorted collegiate and offseason affairs.

New York has often tried to leave the recent past on the far side of the calendar, which hasn't been easy with so many of the departed architects (i.e. Kayla Thornton, Courtney Vandersloot) stopping by Barclays Center to visit. Those who have raised the Association's silver, however, admitted just how valuable the experience can be, especially in a relative underdog setting.

"Experience is the thing that you fall back on when the going gets tough and things aren't going your way," Stewart noted. "It's kind of what brings the team back together, just because you have a sense of an awareness of what's coming. The playoffs are a roller coaster, emotionally, physically, things like that. So for this team to have that experience, whether championships have been won or not, is really important for us going back and forward."

Sabrina Ionescu, shortly after returning from a four-game absence due to foot issues, noted that the Liberty will truly rely on the trials of last year to get through this stretch after playing a good part of this season without a full contingent due to injury.

"I think it's understanding, knowing you're kind of back with your core group, and knowing what it takes to win and how hard it is," Ionescu said. "It's also just knowing that, once the playoffs come, it's a new season, and what you did in the regular season doesn't matter. It's just one game at a time, survive and advance. I think for us, knowing we went through it last year, we know what it takes to win on the road, at home, how hard it is [is huge]."

"No one even talks about what happened in the regular season anymore, like especially last year, right?" Ionescu recalled. "Minnesota beat us in that series, in the regular season, and then you get to the playoffs, and we were able to grind out a win. So I think there's just so many lessons you can learn about what happens from the regular season and how you can just kind of continue to learn and improve through the playoffs, and that's something we're excited about, because, obviously, we haven't been playing our best basketball, but I'd say we're kind of knocking at the door to be able to do that with 12 players."

The Liberty will have to overcome some dire history in the fifth slot to keep its repeat dreams alive: since the WNBA playoffs moved to a bye-free, three-round format in 2022, the fifth seed has yet to even win a game in the best-of-three opening round.

But, as if it perfectly signify just how the idea of experience can come in handy, Brondello at the helm of the last No. 5 team to a series, guiding, ironically enough, the Mercury to the 2021 WNBA Finals before falling to Vandersloot and the Chicago Sky. In further irony, Phoenix took down eighth-ranked New York in that season's single-game opening round, spoiling Ionescu's WNBA postseason debut.