A lineup change and history were made in the Liberty’s playoff win over Dream

Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot called the film from the Liberty’s final regular season game against Atlanta “humbling”. While New York had nothing to play for on the final day of the regular season, their performance brought up questions about the No. 1 overall seed’s readiness for the moment, the beginning of their quest to return to the WNBA Finals. 

“You just can’t … flip the switch and all of sudden you’re playing a playoff intensity, a playoff physicality, a playoff kind of game,” Liberty assistant coach Olaf Lange told The Next. “So you have to build up your focus, your mindset, your intensity.”

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But after the Liberty’s practice on Saturday, how the team responded to their film session and the new scout that the coaching staff had created the day before, Lange saw a change in urgency, the language between players and overall positive progress. 

“What I said before is there’s no more time to talk about it,” Liberty forward Breanna Stewart said following what was an 83-69 Liberty win over the Dream in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs. “This is it. The time is now, and we have to be ready to go out and put an entire game together.” 

And that they did. Part of the Liberty’s plan to handle an athletic Atlanta roster in a higher stakes series was to maximize defensive versatility. That meant that Leonie Fiebich, the 6’4, 24-year-old rookie wing from Germany, was given the starting nod in place of Vandersloot. Fiebich, who was notified of the change the day before the game, came out with the exact sense of urgency and focus that the Liberty set out to have. 

She scored a team-leading 21 points on 7-for-8 shooting. She made all four of her threes and it took her almost two and a half quarters to miss. Her only miss was a 19-footer with seven minutes remaining in the third quarter. She had two steals, an assist and a rebound. But the mere box score stats don’t tell the full story of Fiebich’s on-court impact. 

“Her length, her physicality, her ability to be able to blow things up and stay in the play so you can’t run things smoothly,” Atlanta Dream head coach Tanisha Wright said about Fiebich’s influence defensively.  

Fiebich held Dream wing Rhyne Howard to two points and 0-for-6 shooting in the first half and made it difficult for the 2022 Rookie of the Year to get open looks on Atlanta’s stagger screens. This represented a change in the Liberty’s game plan, which was helmed by Liberty assistant Roneeka Hodges. 

The change allowed for Betnijah Laney-Hamilton to defend point guard Jordin Canada at the point of attack and pester her from around 90 feet up the court instead of having to chase Howard through scenes in the quarter court. In the final game of the regular season against Atlanta, Laney-Hamilton’s assignment was Howard and Vandersloot was placed on Canada. 

The Liberty also considered the fact that Laney-Hamilton’s bandwidth ought to be conserved rather than tested in the first round after missing 12 games this season due to knee pain, followed by a minor surgery to remove loose bodies within her right knee, and then a scare after a collision with Jonquel Jones that impacted that same knee. 

When Laney-Hamilton was out, Fiebich took her place in the starting lineup, and took on the role that Laney-Hamilton excelled in last season. She was a spacer, a lockdown defender and a connector. But with Brondello realizing how much she wants Laney-Hamilton in positions to play-make and facilitate, her role in 2024 has changed also. 

Vandersloot added that the change was explained to her as a way to make the Liberty’s offense less “chunky”, having two playmakers on the floor rather than three in herself, Laney-Hamilton and fellow guard Sabrina Ionescu. 

“We just felt like with [Laney-Hamilton] having to have those short breaks, it allowed us to have the best lineup on at all times, and always having two handlers,” head coach Sandy Brondello said about the change. “So when [Vandersloot] could come in, then [Laney-Hamilton] can come back and get Sabrina and have two playmakers.”

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Fiebich’s performance made league history. She became the first rookie to make at least four 3-pointers in a playoff game without a miss and she recorded a +25 plus-minus, which tied Minnesota Lynx legend Lindsay Whalen for the fourth-best plus-minus by a rookie in a single playoff game all-time. 

Vandersloot also made history of her own coming off the bench for the first time in her WNBA career since 2017. With around five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Vandersloot passed Sue Bird, with Bird in the house at Barclays center, as the WNBA’s all-time leader in playoff assists. 

It was significant for Vandersloot because it showed the meaningful ways that the 35-year-old point guard can contribute to this New York Liberty team in their postseason run. After the Dream had cut the Liberty’s 21 point lead down to 14 with a 7-0 run of their own, Vandersloot drove through the lane and missed a layup and came up a little shaky. Undeterred, she trotted down the court and got into the passing lane of new Dream guard Ezinne Kalu, got the steal, turned the corner in the restricted area, took three dribbles, and hoisted a pass up in the air. The pass resulted in a perfectly placed assist to a streaking and sprinting Stewart who caught it like a wide receiver on a football field. Stewart scored the easy layup and brought the game back to 16. 

“It just always making winning plays,” Vandersloot said to a group of reporters postgame about the sequence. “That’s a kind of a momentum shifter. They probably could have had a layup, but we turn around and get a layup on our end. Those are the type of plays that you got to make in playoffs to kind of shift the momentum without a timeout.”

That moment meant something for Stewart too. She wasn’t sure if she helped Bird reach the exact postseason assist record, but she knew that she had been a part of both Bird and now Vandersloot’s journeys to get there. 

“She wants what’s best for this team, and knows that whenever it’s her time to be on the court, she’s going to contribute,” Stewart said. “And the fact that she was able to become the playoffs all-time leading assister was really cool. And what was even cooler was I was able to score that basket.”

Stewart was impressed with how Vandersloot came out in her minutes off the bench, something that Vandersloot knows she’ll have to get used to. The perennial starting point guard wasn’t used to the flow of the game coming off the bench. She exploded out of her seat, scampered and threw her warmup jacket to the side every time Brondello called her name on Sunday afternoon. The SLOOOOT chants cascaded the arena each time she saw the floor. 

“It’s almost like a shock to your system how fast things are,” she said. “People are already warmed up and you’re not but that’s part of the game. I think today was a good [opportunity] just to get my feet wet and kind of see what’s different for me, but my game is going to be the same, you know? And as soon as I get out there, I want to impact the game however this team needs.”

There was no sense of jealousy or frustration from Vandersloot that Fiebich started in her spot. There was some sadness, however, and that’s natural. Vandersloot was genuine in her congratulations to the rookie and her success in her first WNBA playoff game. 

“I keep joking with her,” Vandersloot said. “The basket must look this big to her, throwing a pebble into an ocean.”

Fiebich’s success on a major stage on national television means something great to the Liberty’s front office. They had been watching the German wing since before she was WNBA Draft eligible. The Liberty had intended to select her early in the third round of the 2020 WNBA Draft at 26th, but the Los Angeles Sparks swooped her up with their late second round pick at 22nd overall. 

New York tried multiple times to get Fiebich in a trade from the Sparks, but the LA front office didn’t budge. Fiebich’s rights were then traded to the Chicago Sky over a year later when the Sky had a falling out with Gabby Williams over being suspended for the entire 2021 WNBA season. New York then seized the opportunity to acquire the player they always wanted in February of 2023 when Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb traded 2021 Rookie of the Year Michaela Onyenwere in a four-team trade that sent Marina Mabrey (who has since been traded again) to Chicago and Fiebich to New York.

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While there wasn’t room for Fiebich on the Liberty’s 2023 roster, the idea was that she was coming over in 2024. Fiebich has an opportunity to prove the potential New York saw in her all of those years ago. While Liberty fans didn’t know who Fiebich was when she was traded for, one thing is for sure — they know her now. 

While Fiebich and Vandersloot made history of their own on Sunday, so did the Liberty. Following its first playoff win of the season, the franchise began a new tradition. Each time the Liberty win a postseason game from now on, team mascot Ellie the Elephant will light up the same torch that helps introduce players prior to tipoff. 

It’s the Liberty’s hope that the postgame torch-lighting on Sunday is the first of many to come. And just like the Liberty’s new tradition, it’s also only just the beginning for Fiebich and her rising star.