Sandy Brondello’s decision to start Leonie Fiebich over Courtney Vandersloot leads Liberty to Game 1 win vs. Dream

The WNBA postseason breeds item moments. And with Sandy Brondello’s accommodation anterior to Game 1 of her team’s first-round series, the Liberty produced 1 connected their circular backmost to the WNBA Finals.

In her archetypal WNBA playoff game, Leonie Fiebich got the motion to commencement implicit five-time All-Star Courtney Vandersloot successful Sunday’s 83-69 Game 1 triumph implicit the Atlanta Dream.

The determination looked similar the close 1 from the start: At the 6:47 people successful the first, Fiebich drained a trey to enactment the Libs up 9 and unit a Tanisha Wright timeout. Soon after, the German helping disrupted passing lanes — similar she did each day — that led to an Atlanta shot-clock violation.

Fiebich near her fingerprints each implicit the crippled that enactment the Libs successful presumption to beforehand successful the best-of-three bid and finished with 21 points connected 7-of-8 shooting from the field. She added successful 2 steals and an assistance portion marque each 4 of her three-pointers.

Breanna Stewart added 20 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks and 2 steals. Sabrina Ionescu contributed 17 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

The determination to commencement Fiebich meant Vandersloot would travel disconnected the seat for the archetypal clip since 2017 arsenic a subordinate of the Chicago Sky. It’s a determination that became much plausible fixed Fiebich’s effectiveness — connected some ends of the level — starting successful spot of keys players passim the regular season. And the determination might’ve been overmuch clearer with Brondello opting to support Vandersloot connected the seat successful choky regular-season games successful 2024.

Vandersloot inactive logged 16 minutes, but it remains to beryllium seen however overmuch those minutes volition dwindle successful person postseason games. She finished with 4 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.

Fiebich’s insertion into the starting lineup came with the No. 8 effect Dream failing to statesman Game 1 with the aforesaid strength from Thursday’s regular-season finale win. They failed to incorporate the Liberty from deep, resulting successful 5 treys allowed successful the archetypal en-route to a 29-16 shortage to extremity the opening period. The Liberty, however, ended up shooting 8-of-23 from heavy successful Game 1.

Then Wright’s squad looked overwhelmed successful immoderate parts of the second.

Moments aft an authoritative timeout, Dream prima Ryne Howard caught an inbounds walk unaware of the abbreviated changeable timepiece and got called for a violation. A fewer possessions later, Jonquel Jones scored connected an casual layup past Dream guardant Naz Hillmon inbounded the walk close to Fiebich for different casual layup to spell up 15 astatine the 4:17 mark.

Atlanta went into halftime down, 48-30. The Liberty led by arsenic galore arsenic 22 points and won the last 2 periods, 35-29. The win, which was decided agelong earlier the last buzzer, puts the Dream connected the brink of elimination aft getting the playoff-cinching triumph successful the aforesaid gathering connected Thursday.

The Dream volition effort to stave disconnected elimination successful Tuesday’s Game 2 astatine Barclays Center. And their caput manager volition person much adjustments to marque with different Liberty contributor doing harm connected the floor.