'Let's Go Liberty!'

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Well, condolences this morning to the Yankees who got eliminated from baseball's postseason last night. And the same may be coming soon, statistically very likely to be coming soon for the Liberty.

So for the last few minutes of the show, we're turning our attention to the New York Liberty, who I am sad to report lost their second game of the WNBA semifinals last night, 98-101 in overtime against the Atlanta Dream. It's a best of five series and this was their second loss, so they're 0-2.

So they need to win their game tomorrow at Barclays and three games in a row, in fact, if they want to stay in the running for the championship. As many of you probably do know, the New York Liberty won the WNBA championship in 2024 for the first time in the league's 29-year history. It was kind of a watershed moment for the team and they gained a lot of new popularity. Ticket prices, of course, went up. So it's a big year. They've got a new coach. Their star player, Breanna Stewart, is affectionately known as Stewie, is dealing with some knee pain, but it's not over yet. So with me now to unpack some of this and maybe turn you into Liberty fans, if you aren't already, is Maitreyi Anantharaman, co-founder and staff writer at Defector. Maitreyi, thanks so much for joining us.

Maitreyi Anantharaman (1:37)

Of course, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer (1:39)

And listeners, we can sneak in a few phone calls here. If you're a Liberty fan, just tell everybody else why they should follow. Win or lose in this round of the playoffs. What's fun about the Liberty? 212-433-WNYC. Why be a fan? Call or text 212-433-9692.

You want to take on that big picture first? Maitreyi, I think it's fair to say after they won the championship two years ago, a lot more eyes were on the Liberty. How have you seen the vibes evolve since then?

Maitreyi Anantharaman (2:14)

Yeah, I mean, for a long time now, it's been one of the best buildings in the WNBA. I think the fan response has just been huge, and that's a credit to the team for being active in the community and really, I think, just warm and open to fans and creating a different sort of environment in sports for people who maybe wouldn't feel super at home at a Yankees game or at a Giants game. This is a different kind of environment. You'll see different types of celebrities hitting courtside.

Yes, the vibe is really special. I think I've covered a lot of sporting events, and I think those 2024 finals at Barclays, that's probably the loudest building I've ever been in.

Brian Lehrer (3:09)

When you're talking about attracting people who might not be comfortable at a Giants game or something, what are the demographics like? How female is it, for example?

Maitreyi Anantharaman (3:19)

Yeah, it's a lot more female. You have queer sports fans who maybe weren't even sports fans to begin with, who never saw themselves or imagined themselves as sports fans. I've heard from a lot of fans who had described themselves that way, who didn't watch basketball growing up, who were maybe turned off by the jock macho culture of a lot of male pro sports and are really finding a home and finding just a community among these other fans.

Brian Lehrer (3:50)

A lot of moms, of basketball girls. I know one.

Maitreyi Anantharaman (3:54)

Yes. Yeah. There are kids, but there are also adults. There's a big age range.

Yeah, it's been for everyone.

Brian Lehrer (4:04)

You want to talk about last night's nail biter. What happened there?

Maitreyi Anantharaman (4:08)

Yeah. Between the Yankees field and the Liberty turnovers, there's a sort of butterfingers epidemic citywide, unfortunately.

So, I mean, last night, I will say it was probably an improvement on game one, when there were more turnovers and a lot of live ball turnovers that were giving Atlanta easy scoring opportunities. So some of them were cleaned up this time, but at the end of the game, there were just a lot of unforced errors. I think the big one was Sabrina Ionescu sort of flinging a pass to no one out of bounds and turning it over really late in the game. They did get a chance to go to overtime and played Atlanta tough, but it just wasn't enough. There was a slight mini scandal at the end of the game. A WNBA-specific quirk is that there's something called the reset timeout that you get in the last two minutes of a game. The idea is it's like a no-huddle timeout. So you can advance the basketball past half court, but you're not sitting up, drawing a play or anything like that.