ARLINGTON, Texas — There’s no sugarcoating what happened Monday night at College Park Center.
The Liberty may have lost to the Wings just 92-82, but the score is misleading.
Because as inspiring as that fourth-quarter comeback attempt may have seemed, it couldn’t make up for the pathetic way the team played for most of the game.
Things were so bad Monday night that the Liberty held an emergency team meeting in the visiting locker room for close to 40 minutes after the loss.
The team’s slow starts and lack of effort — both ugly habits that have hurt it this season — were topics of discussion.
“Embarrassing. Frustrating. A bit disappointing because we know the level of play we hold ourselves to and the caliber of play that we played at in the past,” Jonquel Jones said. “Use it as a learning opportunity and come out the next game and not to do it because it’s been happening for a few games.”
To be frank, not even the word “embarrassing” could sum up how poorly the defending champions fared for most of the game.
Early in the third quarter, New York looked like it was in jeopardy of suffering one of its most lopsided losses in the past few years at the hands of the Wings — a team that entered the game second to last in the WNBA standings.
The Liberty may have managed to trim a season-high deficit of 30 points to six with less than two minutes to go, but that doesn’t matter because the way the Liberty played for most of the game was absolutely unacceptable for a team that says it’s serious about winning another title this season.
Sure, New York was without Breanna Stewart (right leg) and Nyara Sabally (rest.) Kennedy Burke also was a surprising late addition to the team’s injury report after she exited Saturday’s game with a lower-body cramp.
But the Liberty still have plenty of talent to handle the Wings, who had lost six of their previous seven games.
The Liberty’s condensed schedule shouldn’t be an excuse either.
Monday may have been New York’s third game in four days, but the Wings had played a game 24 hours prior to taking the court Monday night.
Furthermore, the Liberty had a day between games to prepare for this matchup.
Did New York underestimate the Wings? Or look too far ahead in the schedule, knowing a WNBA Finals rematch is on the horizon?
The Wings had the Liberty’s number from the jump, and their lead grew steadily throughout the first half.
“Passive” was the way Sabrina Ionescu described the Liberty’s play.
“[We were] waiting to see what they were going to do instead of being able to be on our front foot and in attack mode,” she said.
New York looked unorganized and often was trailing or out of position on defense, leading to uncontested looks for Dallas.
The Wings took advantage of what the Liberty were giving them, shooting 58.7 percent from the field in the first half and 46.2 percent for the full game.
New York surrendered 31 and 32 points in each of the first two quarters and trailed by 27 points at halftime.
Ionescu said the way the Liberty played early was more of an indictment of the players than the coaching staff.
“It’s never on the coaching staff, right? We’re the ones that go out and play,” said Ionescu, who scored 16 of her 17 points in the second half. “We’re a team full of leaders that are always going to take accountability for the way that we come out.
“It’s kind of a game we can use to learn about what happens when we come out that passive and just kind of rush, like, not being able to trust our offense and defense. And we just got to use it to propel us forward.”
The Liberty did fight back — as they’ve done numerous times this season — and outscored the Wings 46-29 over the final 20 minutes.
But it never should have gotten to the point it did. In the end, the Liberty couldn’t climb out of the deep hole they dug early.
Monday was one game in a season of 44. But complacency has been a recurring and troublesome theme for this team.
The sobering looks on Ionescu, Jones and Brondello’s faces after the loss suggested an ominous feeling leading into Wednesday, when the Liberty face the league-leading Lynx for the first time since last year’s WNBA Finals.
“We got to focus on ourselves,” Ionescu said. “We shouldn’t be playing any differently because who we’re matched up with, what their record is, how talented they are, there’s not really any excuse for the way we come out. We need to value every single game. The regular season is almost over… It’s a game that we got to be able to talk about what we want to fix and be able to go out there and do it.”
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