Valkyries push reigning WNBA champion Liberty, but come up just short

San Francisco Chronicle​

5 hours ago

Too much of Wednesday's 81-78 loss to the New York Liberty at Chase Center was familiar for the Golden State Valkyries: late free throws by the opposition, costly turnovers and suffering an oh-so-close defeat to the defending champs.
The last time the Valkyries fell to the Liberty — May 29 in Brooklyn — Golden State surrendered late free throws to Natasha Cloud while going scoreless in the final two minutes. On Wednesday, the Valkyries — winless in three games against New York — scored six points in the last two minutes on a pair of Kate Martin 3-pointers. The last non-Martin basket came from Kayla Thornton with 6:31 left in the fourth. Martin scored the last 12 Valkyries points.
Liberty guard and Walnut Creek native Sabrina Ionescu hit three free throws with 1:48 left to give New York a two-point lead. The Valkyries had the ball with 45 seconds left, but Ionescu stole it from Tiffany Hayes and the Liberty star hit two more free throws for the two-possession advantage.
Martin notched her fourth 3-pointer of the night to make it a one-point game with 11.4 seconds left. But Ionescu added two more free throws — she was 8-for-8 from the line — and Martin missed a would-be game-tying desperation shot with two Liberty players guarding her.
While Martin listed some positives in the loss, almost winning is not the desired outcome.
Liberty 81, Valkyries 78
FG FT Reb
NEW YORK Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PTS
Gardner 33:41 4-10 1-2 3-3 0 3 11
Stewart 37:17 9-19 3-3 1-10 3 1 23
Sabally 15:44 1-4 1-2 3-4 1 3 3
Cloud 27:06 1-8 0-0 0-3 7 4 2
Ionescu 29:11 1-11 8-8 1-7 4 2 11
Burke 30:25 6-14 4-4 4-5 1 0 20
Johannès 17:47 4-6 0-0 1-5 1 1 11
Harrison 4:53 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 1 0
Sherrod 3:54 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Totals 200:00 26-72 17-19 13-37 18 16 81
Percentages: FG .361, FT .895.
3-Point Goals: 12-36, .333 (Burke 4-9, Johannès 3-5, Stewart 2-4, Gardner 2-5, Ionescu 1-7, Cloud 0-6).
Team Rebounds: 7. Team Turnovers: 1.
Blocked Shots: 5 (Stewart 2, Gardner, Ionescu, Sabally).
Turnovers: 8 (Cloud 3, Stewart 2, Gardner, Ionescu, Johannès).
Steals: 5 (Burke, Cloud, Ionescu, Johannès, Stewart).
Technical Fouls: None.
Percentages: FG .389, FT .833.
3-Point Goals: 12-35, .343 (Martin 4-10, Talbot 3-5, Hayes 2-6, Bibby 1-1, Burton 1-4, Thornton 1-5, Amihere 0-1, Chen 0-1, Billings 0-2).
Team Rebounds: 12. Team Turnovers: 2.
Blocked Shots: 3 (Amihere, Burton, Hayes).
Turnovers: 10 (Hayes 3, Martin 2, Talbot 2, Amihere, Billings, Thornton).
Steals: 5 (Amihere, Billings, Hayes, Martin, Thornton).
Technical Fouls: None.
A_18,064 (18,064).
'We don't really care about being close,' she said. 'We want to win, that's our goal every night. We don't care if it's the defending champs. We don't care who you are.'
Martin scored a career-high 21 points off the bench. She scored all nine of the Valkyries points — all on treys — in a 9-2 run that put Golden State (7-7) ahead 75-74 with 1:59 to play.
When the Valkyries fell to the Liberty (11-3) on May 29, they dropped to 2-3 and under .500 for the first time. Still, after a shellacking to the same team two days prior, the 82-77 defeat felt like a moral victory for the expansion team. Such was not the case Wednesday.
'Our goal is to win,' said Martin. 'Our goal is to control what we can control, and go out there and give our best effort every single night. Some nights it's going to swing your way, and some nights it's not. We're just going to have to learn from it.'
New York forward Breanna Stewart scored 21 points in the first half as the Valkyries struggled to contain the much-larger Liberty in the paint, but they shut her down with just two second-half points. It was reminiscent of how Golden State took out Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston last week after she had her way at the rim in the first half.
'We just kind of let her walk right into the paint (in the first half),' head coach Natalie Nakase said. 'She just walked right in, literally. … Sometimes you have to see it on film, and they made the adjustment being more physical.'
Golden State made a season-high six 3-pointers in the first quarter to open a 32-29 lead. New York went on an 11-2 run to start the second quarter behind a flurry of scoring from Stewart and led 46-43 at the half. The Valkyries went 0-for-8 from deep in the second frame.
Marine Johannes hit three consecutive 3-pointers in a 99-second span late in the third quarter to keep the Liberty ahead. Golden State got within one on a Thornton 3-pointer with 6:31 before New York scored the following five points.
'Johannes got pretty hot there,' Martin said. 'I think we could have adjusted how we guarded her a little bit better. … In the first half, they had 10 offensive rebounds. They only ended with 13, which is a great second-half adjustment, but 10 O-boards in a half is a lot, and so I think definitely that could have been cleaned up in the first half.'
The Liberty were without starting center Jonquel Jones, who also missed the last game between the teams. Valkyries rookie point guard Carla Leite missed her second game of the season with a back injury.
Golden State held Ionescu to just 11 points on 1-for-11 shooting in her first WNBA game in the Bay Area. Ionescu had been questionable with a neck injury. She eventually made the key free throws at the end — and got the late steal from Hayes — but the bulk of New York's offense came from Stewart and bench center Kennedy Burke (20 points).
Along with Martin's breakout, forward Steph Talbot scored a season-high 13 points and went 3-for-5 from 3-point range. After the game, she called the performance 'a relief' after making just two treys all season.
'We don't care what the score ended up being, or whatever, we want to win,' Nakase said. 'And you can see it. You can feel it with our players. ... I'll never put (the stakes of a game) at the end of the game with one shot. You can never put that much on it, the possessions in the first and second to me, those are the ones where we slipped.'