The New York Liberty didn’t just get past the Minnesota Lynx in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs. They blew through them.
Now the Liberty move on to face the Atlanta Dream in the semifinals after a two-game sweep of the No. 1 seed, with both wins coming by 16 points. The matchup with Atlanta figures to be tougher on paper, but New York’s opening series made one thing clear: this team had answers, and it had them fast.
A big part of that was tempo. Minnesota never solved New York’s transition game from Game 1 to Game 2, and the Liberty kept turning live-ball opportunities into easy points.
They were pushing in the first half at nearly 20% frequency before slowing things down later, and the series finished with New York scoring 1.75 points per transition possession, according to hand-tracking. Chris DeMarco put it plainly: “It was just one of our keys.
One of our keys, I mean, when you get into a playoff series, you look at what’s worked this season, where we’re at our best, and it’s one of the things we wanted to do. No matter if we were down ten, up ten, just continue to push the tempo.”
Minnesota also couldn’t contain New York’s pick-and-roll work, especially out of the flat alignment with two corners filled and the dunker spot occupied. After Game 1, the Liberty had already leaned heavily into base pick-and-roll, running it on 19 of 61 half-court possessions, or 31.15% of the time, and producing 1.32 points per possession.
Game 2 brought more of the same: base PnR on 31.25% of half-court trips and 1.15 points per possession. Sabrina Ionescu kept the ball moving, attacked, and found the shots New York wanted.
That mattered even more because she protected the ball. Ionescu finished the series with only four turnovers total, a big number in a matchup built around high-volume pick-and-roll. And with Atlanta leading the league in points off turnovers during the regular season, New York’s ability to create those possessions while limiting mistakes could be just as important in the next round.
The Liberty also got more than enough from their stars. The source of the confidence was there before the series, even if the result still went beyond expectations.
New York had the personnel to bother Olivia Miles, and it showed. Miles was overwhelmed and eventually benched.
Breanna Stewart was the best player in the series, and then some, playing every second of non-garbage-time basketball. Jonquel Jones made her presence felt too, giving the undersized Lynx fits with second efforts and rim protection.
There was no fluke involved here. New York was simply the better team.
Rebecca Allen pointed to the coaching staff’s approach after the sweep, saying, “I think that you’re seeing - you’re leaning into your stars a lot in this in these games, and today you had to lean into your bench in other moments as well. And I think it’s playing that game.
But I like the way that they’re speaking to us. It’s about making sure that we’re staying calm.
I think you can get caught up in the emotions of playoff basketball because it is all heightened. But that calm is so important.
So I think they’re doing a great, great job of managing that. They’re just so focused.”
Stewart echoed that view when asked about DeMarco, noting that on his birthday, “had meetings all day with the staff, with the players, making sure everybody was locked in on what we needed to do. So I think they accepted the challenge that this is their first rodeo here, and I think they did incredibly well.”
The question now is whether that same formula holds up against Atlanta, a team that is unlikely to give New York the same clean runway in transition or the same openings in pick-and-roll. Game 1 of the best-of-5 series is set for Sunday, with tip-off time still to be determined.
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