Liberty vs. Mercury: 23-0 Run, Longest in Franchise History, Lifts New York to 84-74 Win

With 6:09 left in the third quarter and New York down 55-49, Chris DeMarco sent Betnijah Laney-Hamilton to the scorer's table. It was a routine substitution on an ordinary Wednesday. By the time the horn sounded, the Liberty had scored 23 straight points and Phoenix had forgotten where the basket was.

That run, the longest in Liberty franchise history, was the whole ballgame. The New York Liberty went on to an 84-74 win over the Phoenix Mercury at Barclays Center, ending a three-game losing streak and giving a short-handed roster its most satisfying night of the young season. Marine Johannes scored 21 points without making a single two-pointer, and Jonquel Jones added 17 points and 12 rebounds.

Six Minutes of Silence

For two-plus quarters, this was a fair fight. Leonie Fiebich, making her season debut, scored New York's first five points, and Johannes was already rolling, knocking down four 3s in the opening quarter on her way to 12 points. The Liberty went 5-for-6 from deep in the period and still led only 24-22.

Phoenix hung around thanks to Kahleah Copper and took a 43-42 lead into the half. The Mercury carried that momentum into the third, finishing a 10-0 run that made it 50-42, their biggest lead of the night. At 55-49, Phoenix looked like the more composed team.

Then the Mercury's offense vanished. Over the rest of the quarter, Phoenix did not score again, and it gave the ball away eight times during the drought, three of those on offensive fouls. Jones had 10 points during the run, and the Liberty's lead reached 72-55 at the horn. Monique Akoa Makani finally ended the nearly seven-minute dry spell with a corner 3 in the fourth, but the damage was done. New York scored just 12 in the final quarter, Phoenix got no closer than 10, and the crowd of 14,995 could relax well before the finish.

Johannes From Way Out

Johannes finished 7-of-11 from the floor and 7-of-9 from 3, a career high in makes. She has now reached 1,000 career points, and per the team, no player in WNBA history had ever gotten to four games with five or more 3s inside her team's first eight games of a season. She also dished five assists, which is the part of her game that makes defenses truly miserable.

Jones struggled to find the rim at times, shooting 5-of-16, but her impact was enormous. She had 12 rebounds, four assists and a game-high-tying plus-15, and she was the engine during the run that decided everything. Breanna Stewart added 11 points in her 300th career game, finishing the night with 6,145 career points, which the team lists as the second-most by any player through 300 games. Laney-Hamilton, back in the lineup, scored seven in 13 minutes and matched Jones at plus-15. Han Xu gave New York eight points in 11 minutes off the bench, and Pauline Astier chipped in seven points, four rebounds, four assists and two blocks.

For Phoenix, Copper led with 19 but needed 18 shots and went 2-of-9 from 3. Natasha Mack was efficient with 14 on 6-of-7 shooting, and Alyssa Thomas had nine points, seven rebounds and nine assists, along with four of the Mercury's giveaways. Akoa Makani scored nine in her first game of the season after finishing her overseas commitments. DeWanna Bonner had two points on 1-of-5 shooting in 24 minutes.

New York did all of this without Sabrina Ionescu, out with a back issue, and without Satou Sabally, who came over from Phoenix this season and was scratched about an hour before tipoff. Fiebich, meanwhile, was fresh off winning a Spanish league title.

The Substitution and the Streak

The turning point has a clean time stamp: 6:09 of the third. Laney-Hamilton's arrival coincided with everything that followed, but the real story was defense. The Liberty forced 13 Phoenix turnovers after halftime, and the night became a sprint the Mercury could not join. Those three offensive fouls show how rushed Phoenix got as the lead grew.

Once it was over, the Liberty had turned a six-point deficit into a 17-point lead without allowing a point. The team says Phoenix's scoreless stretch to end the quarter was the longest by a Liberty opponent since 2016.

Stats That Matter

• The run: 23-0. The longest scoring run in Liberty franchise history, spanning the final minutes of the third quarter.
• Third quarter: New York 30, Phoenix 12. Every other quarter was within seven points.
• 3-pointers: New York 14-of-30, Phoenix 10-of-30. Same number of tries, 12 more points, and half of those New York makes belonged to Johannes.
• Points off turnovers: New York 26, Phoenix 9. The Mercury's 17 total turnovers produced New York's best such total since June 1, 2025.
• Free throws: New York 14-of-14, Phoenix 14-of-22. Perfect at the line helps when you are protecting a lead.

A Skid Ends, Another Grows

New York is 4-4, and the three-game slide it just ended was the franchise's longest since 2022. It was also the Liberty's first win at home since opening night, leaving them 2-3 at Barclays. Phoenix drops to 2-6 with a fourth straight loss and is 1-3 on the road.

These two will see each other again on Friday night. Last season's first-round playoff series went to the Mercury, who rode that win to the WNBA Finals, and both rosters look very different now.

The Longest Hallway in Brooklyn

For more than six minutes on Wednesday, Phoenix's offense looked like a hallway in Severance: plenty of walking, plenty of doors, nobody ever getting anywhere. The Mercury were a real team for 24 minutes and a confused one for the seven that followed.

New York is not fully whole yet, and a .500 record is not going to scare anyone. But a roster missing two major pieces just produced the longest run in its long history. Imagine what the sequel looks like when the whole cast shows up.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press. Team notes from the New York Liberty.