Liberty's 32-point Start vs. Lynx's Strong Second Quarter

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00:00I can also give credit where credit is due. First quarter was all Liberty. They were out

00:08playing the Lynx. Oh, pains me to say that. But they were out playing them, putting up

00:12a 32 point performance in the first quarter compared to the Lynx 19 points. So talk to

00:17me about the fast start that you saw with the Lynx or with the Liberty last night and

00:20how the Lynx started to crawl their way back into it in that second quarter.

00:24Yeah. So with the fast start, Casey, you know, the thing with the Liberty that has worked

00:29well for them all season long is that they were moving the ball really, really well.

00:33And I expected that since the Lynx only had a day of rest, the Liberty hadn't played since

00:38Sunday. I expected them to get out to this fast start. And we saw that. We thought, you

00:42know, Minnesota will be a little bit tired having to fly from Minnesota to New York.

00:45But the key for the Liberty in that first quarter was that they were moving the ball

00:48really well. They were finding John Quayle Jones on mismatches who was sealing off really

00:53well and she was scoring inside, grabbing rebounds. She had 10 points and three rebounds

00:57after the first quarter. Now, you also asked what happened in the second quarter where

01:01Minnesota closed the gap a little bit. And in fact, even had cut it to two at one point

01:06in the third. Well, Minnesota really started applying pressure and looking like the team

01:11that we know that they are defensively. And I think that really changed the game. The

01:15Liberty got rattled. They got too comfortable in what they were doing. They weren't running

01:19their sets as efficiently as they could and they weren't moving the ball at the same crispness.

01:24So you got to credit Minnesota for that because they really disrupted. They didn't hang their

01:28heads when they were down by as many as 18 points. They really battled back in this one.

01:32It was really defense that got them back in this game, especially late in the game. They

01:35were able to force turnovers and that really changed the game for the links and also for

01:40the Liberty. Absolutely. Now, before we touch too much on the links is defense and most

01:45importantly, the front runner for helping the Minnesota links find success last night

01:49in that OT thriller. Let's also talk about the fact that you mentioned Jones, but there

01:54was some isolations that came about when it came to Brianna Stewart's performance. Somebody

01:58who typically she did find double digits, but I think she only sat at about 19 points

02:02or 18 points, excuse me, nine rebounds, which is still tremendous and three assists. But

02:06a lot of the books, especially Fandula specifically, have her having a 20 plus performance in game

02:12two. What'd you see out of Stewart last night compared or going up against the links?

02:17She missed a lot of shots and we can get to the last shot of the game, which she absolutely

02:21should have hit and was pretty down about it after the game, but she missed a lot of

02:26easy shots, shots that you thought were in rhythm for her six of 21. So not a good shooting

02:31night from the field, from Brianna Stewart. You expect her to be better. You talked about

02:35the books, having her add as a 20 plus point scorer. But I think one of the things we have

02:40to give respect to is we got to give respect to feed. If he's a Collier tremendous, she

02:44is the defensive player of the year, had three blocks in this one. She made life difficult

02:49for Brianna Stewart, particularly in that second half. Still with that said, I thought

02:54there were some looks that Stewie should have hit and she just wasn't able to. She just

02:59seemed off rhythm all night. Now you got to give the Liberty credit. They trusted her

03:03at the end. They went to her at the end and particularly that last shot in overtime. She

03:07made a good move. You could tell him the fees of Collier didn't want to play as physical,

03:11especially the way we saw things were called at the end of regulation. But still, he's

03:15got to hit that shot. Bad night for Stewie. I'm very intrigued to see how the former MVP

03:20bounces back in game two.

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