Liberty forward Rebecca Allen isn’t surprised by the team’s 3-1 start.
Actually, Allen said she expected to win all four.
Portland stole a win from the Liberty last week after executing better down the stretch.
The Fire had fresh bodies, deploying a 10-player rotation that wore down their opponent.
Meanwhile, the Liberty had just nine active players in last Tuesday’s defeat.
Only seven players played 12 or more minutes, and four of the team’s starters logged 30-plus minutes.
The Fire’s bench outscored the Liberty’s 32-11.
Those days of overloading the starters, though, may soon be behind the Liberty.
New York expects to replenish its roster in the near future.
Sabrina Ionescu (left foot) and Satou Sabally (cyst) fully participated in Monday’s practice.
Meanwhile, the arrival of Leonie Fiebich and Raquel Carrera is imminent after they helped Valencia win the Spanish League championship Sunday morning.
The Liberty didn’t have an official timeline for when Fiebich and Carrera will join the team.
Coach Chris DeMarco said “they could use a few days off,” but hoped to have them in the building by the end of the week.
DeMarco said Ionescu and Sabally “looked good” in practice.
“Obviously both working on getting back to full speed,” he said, “but yeah, really impressed with the progress they’ve made.”
This is overall good news for the team.
The influx of talent, though, is about to make DeMarco’s job both easier and more complicated.
On one hand, the Liberty are welcoming back All-Stars Ionescu and Sabally along with Fiebich, who was one of the Liberty’s best perimeter defenders last season.
They’ll also have Carrera, whose addition will improve the frontcourt’s depth.
On the other hand, there are only so many minutes to be played.
A playing time crunch feels imminent.
It’s a good problem to have.
“My door is always open, I want to have these one-on-one relationships with our players,” DeMarco said when asked about navigating rotation changes with players returning. “… The minutes thing, it’ll work itself out. Everybody in this building is here to win. And everyone’s gonna do what’s best for the team to win and so we’ll figure all that out when it happens but right now, our focus is on Golden State and the game plan and make sure we’re ready for them.”
Some starters who could be immediately impacted are Pauline Astier and Marine Johannès.
The French backcourt duo has been electric to start the season.
Johannès is beaming with confidence.
She’s averaging career highs of 15.8 points and five assists per game.
Her 15 made 3s are the most in the league.
Astier is second on the team in scoring, with 16.8 points per game on 62.5 percent shooting from the field and 45.5 percent from beyond the arc.
It is also conceivable that Betnijah Laney-Hamilton could be moved to the bench in favor of Fiebich.
Astier said she doesn’t know what’s going to happen regarding the starting lineup once the team is back at full strength.
Asked about her mentality of starting a game versus coming off the bench, she said, “We just have to be ready every time.”
DeMarco said the team will still rely heavily on Astier even with Ionescu back.
“For Pauline, her role isn’t going to change,” he said. “I know Sab’s coming back, but she’s been really impactful and she’s going to continue to get those opportunities.”