Tabbed as a “superteam” heading into the 2023 WNBA season, the New York Liberty showed they are still a work in progress after their 80-64 season-opening loss to the Washington Mystics on Friday night.
The 16-point defeat would be the largest season-opening loss by an eventual WNBA champion, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. But point guard Courtney Vandersloot said the Liberty is nowhere near “panic mode by any means.”
“It’s got to build up,” coach Sandy Brondello said. “I wish we had a little longer camp with our full team. … We can learn a lot from this. The team with the most chemistry certainly won tonight. We were not very good, and they were very good.”
Indeed, New York looked like a team with multiple new pieces and players still getting back into the basketball groove, whereas D.C. looked like a unit that had played together for years. After all, four of its five starters were part of its title-winning run in 2019.
“This was a huge…
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