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After suffering an 89-81 loss to the Mercury on Thursday, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu looked as dejected as they have in recent memory.

Their frustration with a Liberty loss in a winnable game at Barclays Center was palpable.

Stewart’s season-high 35 points weren’t enough to topple Phoenix, which was playing on the second night of a back-to-back.

Coach Sandy Brondello didn’t make any excuses for the disappointing outcome.

“We’re not happy with the way we played,” Brondello said. “They got energy as it went along with the success that they had. We let that one go.”

Don’t get it wrong: The Mercury — even without Kahleah Copper, who was resting because of an early season knee injury — are one of the league’s best teams.

Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally are two of the league’s best players.

Thomas had 18 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists, and despite Sabally having an off night, she still finished with 18 points and nine rebounds.

Thursday night, the Liberty had only themselves to blame for the outcome.

They were outrebounded 42-32 and allowed the Mercury to corral 15 offensive boards.

And Phoenix made them pay by scoring a whopping 26 second-chance points.

Of course, it didn’t help that the Liberty were without Jonquel Jones for most of the game after she re-injured her right ankle early in the second quarter.

But the Liberty need to be a better overall rebounding team. They can’t rely on just one player to carry the load.

The Liberty also committed 20 turnovers for the second time this season.

Brondello and players alike expressed frustration with the team’s slow starts.

“We’re putting ourselves at the deficit, having to work really hard in the second half to come back,” Natasha Cloud said, “and that’s just not the way we want to play.”

The Liberty were only down three at halftime, but managed to lead by as many as six points in the third quarter.

It helped that Stewart got hot, scoring 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting, including a pair of 3s, in that quarter alone.

But the Mercury regrouped and were within one point of the Liberty to start the fourth.

Then, Phoenix pulled away.

“We didn’t respond very well at all,” Brondello said. “It’s on us. I got to find ways to get us going a little bit more aggressively in the beginning here. And it was too easy, too easy for them. And they got a lot of confidence out of that.”

Afterward, the Liberty spoke about holding one another accountable on defense and cleaning the glass.

There’s no reason to panic — at least not yet.

“We’re fine,” Kennedy Burke said. “We were talking about this. There’s nothing really to stress about because we know what we can do.”

Cloud doubled down on that thought.

“We know what we have in this locker room,” she said. “We have a championship-caliber team. But with a championship-caliber team, that s–t doesn’t come easy. Winning the championship, it’s hard. … We just can’t skip over the minute details. We have to be better and we’re going to be better. That’s just the accountability and the standard that is Liberty basketball.”

The Liberty (10-2) will pack their bags to hit the road for a 10-day road trip.

They play in Seattle on Sunday before heading to the Bay Area to face the Valkyries.

The reigning champions also have stops in Phoenix and Atlanta on tap.