There was a moment late in the third quarter when it looked as if the Liberty were going to let yesterday’s crucial game against the Connecticut Sun slip away. The Liberty led for most of the highly physical contest until a 16-0 run by the Sun turned the Liberty’s eight-point lead into an eight-point deficit with 1:58 left in the third.
Then Cappie Pondexter showed why she is an MVP candidate by calling her teammates together on the court.
“We didn’t even go to the bench,” center Taj McWilliams-Franklin said. “[Cappie] just felt like we needed to get together, and we said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna get this game. We gotta focus and we gotta stay together.’ That’s what kind of team we have.”
The Liberty responded to Pondexter’s impromptu meeting by outscoring the Sun 27-15 the rest of the way to take a 71-67 victory that gave it sole possession of fourth place — the final playoff spot — in the Eastern Conference.
And, much to the delight of the 9,341 fans at Madison Square Garden, the Liberty did it in true New York fashion: by playing such intense defense that the Sun managed to take just nine shots from the floor in the fourth quarter.
“We just had to buckle down and get it done, one stop at a time,” McWilliams-Franklin said.
The Liberty (14-11) had defense on their mind from the outset. Pondexter and Leilani Mitchell pressured the Sun’s guards, and 39-year-old McWilliams-Franklin prevented 21-year-old Tina Charles, the top pick in the draft and former UConn star, from dominating in the post.
Charles had a double-double (12 points, 10 rebounds), but she also committed five turnovers. The Liberty forced 20 total turnovers, seven in the fourth quarter. Asjha Jones led the Sun (13-12) with 18 points.
“We know that [Renee] Montgomery and Tan [White] really don’t like the pressure,” said Pondexter, who scored a game-high 24 points and, at 27 years old, became the third youngest player to score 3,000 points in WNBA history. “We wanted to make them run their offense with 15 seconds to go [on the shot clock].”
Mitchell scored 15 points and picked up four steals, and Janel McCarville, who missed most of the second half after twisting her ankle, scored nine. X-rays on McCarville’s ankle were negative, and she was able to return to the game in the fourth quarter.
Pondexter, in her first season with the Liberty, returned from the All-Star break three weeks ago and declared she would take on a greater leadership role. There would be no more excuses, she said, for a team that was 7-9 and in last place at the time.
Pondexter is living up to her word. The Liberty is 7-2 since the break and just three games out of first place with nine regular-season games remaining.
“Other teams have been noticing,” coach Anne Donovan said. “Now that we’re peaking at the right time, [everyone] is talking about potentially New York being in the playoffs and doing some damage.”
