Opportunity was knocking. Loudly.
Although they started the season 4-11, the Liberty entered the final week of the WNBA season alive and well in the muddled playoff picture of the Eastern Conference.
However, by winning just two of their final five games, they came up just short. After a wire-to-wire 73-61 victory over the Indiana Fever on Sunday evening in front of 9,432 at the Garden, the Liberty finished 15-19 and lost a tiebreaker with the Chicago Sky for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Sky reached the playoffs by going 3-0 against the Liberty.
“[Scoring] was the difference in the start of the game,” Liberty coach Bill Laimbeer said. “We made some buckets that we didn’t make at Indiana [in a loss on Thursday], and we were able to get a little bit of confidence.”
In winning their second consecutive game to end the season, the Liberty got contributions from up and down the roster, as all 12 players scored. Plenette Pierson came off the bench to notch a team-high 15 points, while Anna Cruz had 10 points, three assists and three steals.
After allowing Indiana to shoot 54 percent in a blowout victory at the Garden last Sunday, the Liberty responded defensively, holding the Fever (16-18) to shoot just 35 percent from the field while forcing 17 turnovers, allowing the team to head into the offseason on somewhat of a high note.
“We [finished] one game out of second [place],” Laimbeer said. “Pretty strange. It just hammers the point that every possession matters, and that’s something that they didn’t have this year from the start.”
“I think we’re all disappointed, as a whole, not being able to make the playoffs for consecutive [years],” guard Cappie Pondexter said. “It’s disappointing to this franchise.”
Despite the disappointing season, things seem to be trending upward for the Liberty.
The team has a franchise center in Tina Charles, who averaged 17.4 points and 9.4 rebounds this season after being acquired in mid-April in exchange for Alyssa Thomas, Kelsey Bone and a 2015 first-round pick.
Laimbeer is hoping for a bounce-back 2015 from guard Essence Carson, who averaged double-digits in 2009, 2011 and 2012 but struggled with her health this season, averaging only 3.4 points per game while playing in just 25 games. She had suffered a torn ACL last June.
Laimbeer said if Carson returns to form, it could ease the burden on Charles and Pondexter, the team’s primary scorers.
“I expect, with this whole offseason coming up, that Essence is going to come back and be one of those double-digit scorers,” he said.
Pondexter is optimistic the team will get back to its winning ways in 2015.
“We have the right pieces now — I think we’re going in the right direction,” she said. “Hopefully next year, we all can have that energy and that same vision.”