After getting win No. 24 of the season, the Liberty are now on a late summer break.
New York crushed the Chicago Sky, 85-66, Saturday afternoon at Barclays Center in the team’s final game before the league’s international stars depart for the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Berlin.
Breanna Stewart (USA), Pauline Astier (France), Marine Johannes (France), Leonie Fiebich (Germany), Han Xu (China), Raquel Carrera (Spain) and Elizabeth Balogun (Nigeria) are packed and ready to battle for the gold medal in the tournament, which is set to take place from Sept. 4-13.
The WNBA will be break after Sunday’s action until Sept. 16 as players handle international duties.
Head coach Chris DeMarco will also head to Berlin to oversee his players during the tournament.
But before the Liberty players began their travels, they took care of business at home.
Xu, the backup center, led all scorers with a season-high 19 points to go along with five rebounds and two steals as Liberty starters rested for most of the second half.
DeMarco managed to keep all his starters under 30 minutes with the game decided early.
Rebecca Allen’s back-to-back wide-open three-pointers with over seven minutes remaining in the game forced a time out from Sky head coach Tyler Marsh. The makes gave the Liberty a 24-point lead and the team cruised the rest of the way.
Sabrina Ionescu’s continued shooting slump was the lone negative on the afternoon.
The guard, who entered Saturday shooting no better than 20% from downtown in seven consecutive games, went 0-for-10 (missed three treys) for two points in 23 minutes. She did, though, contribute five rebounds, four assists and a block.
The Sky never posed a threat. Already eliminated from postseason contention, the rebuilding squad will finish off their season with four games following the World Cup break.
The Liberty will have the same amount of games — Sept. 18 at Minnesota, Sept. 20 at Toronto, Sept. 21 vs. Atlanta and Sept. 23 vs. Atlanta — as the jockey for playoff seeing.
It’ll also serve as a short amount of time to prepare themselves for a postseason push.
The team hopes to get Satou Sabally, who hasn’t played since June 23 due to a head injury, back as she recovers away from the team.