Buying into 'process' pays off for Liberty

The growth of a team over the course of this season and the growth of a franchise in Brooklyn over the course of the last three were right there for everyone to see Monday night inside Barclays Center.

The Liberty’s loud sellout crowd of 11,615 — the largest in their Barclays tenure — watched them improve to 28-7 by beating first-place Las Vegas in the regular-season finale between the teams that have been hyped from the start to meet in the WNBA Finals.

“We’re the New York Liberty,” GM Jonathan Kolb said. “We want to be a Liberty town this summer, and it’s really turned into that.” 

The growth wasn’t lost on Kolb. He has lived through the lean days of low attendance totals and low win totals, beginning with his first season of 2019 when the Liberty played mostly at Westchester County Center. Their first full season at Barclays came in 2021. 

“I think it just says how far we’ve come,” Kolb said of Monday’s achievements. “Going back to 2019 to where we are here is really surreal.”

It appears that it will be tough to catch Las Vegas for the top seed. The Liberty headed into Friday night’s home game vs. Connecticut two games back of the Aces, who have three left, one against struggling Seattle and two against struggling Phoenix.

So the Liberty could be without the home-court advantage if they make the best-of-five Finals and face Vegas. Then they would need to win a game out there.

Kayla Thornton basically shrugged at the thought because they won the Commissioner’s Cup final out there on Aug. 15.

“We’ve already accomplished that once,” said the veteran reserve forward, who received a two-year contract extension Friday that runs through 2025. “So that’s nothing major for us that we have to worry about.”   

The Liberty owned a streak of five straight losing seasons before bringing in the Big 3 — Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot — to join Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney. Mixing together the ingredients of a championship-caliber team required patience.

“I saw a quote already that Stewie said, ‘Trust the process,’ ” Kolb said.  “She said it facetiously, but I think there is a process here. To see the whole team trust that process, it has been been heartening. Everyone came in here with a commonality, knowing this can be really special.”

Kolb credited coach Sandy Brondello for getting everyone to “buy in.”

“When you put these names together on paper, it looks amazing,” Kolb said. “But I think we’ve all kind of seen throughout the season that it takes time. … I think it really is coming together.”

Ionescu, who sat out vs. Connecticut to rest a minor calf issue, should break the WNBA’s single-season mark for three-pointers. Stewart and Seattle’s Jewell Loyd are nearing the single-season scoring record.

“But I’m really not focused on any of the individual accolades that are happening,” Stewart said. “Just continue to make sure we get wins and we put ourselves in the right position come playoff time.”