The Liberty suffered a tough loss the Los Angeles Sparks on Friday night at The Garden, 68-54, as they were held to just four points in the fourth quarter. The Liberty fell to 7-13 on the season.
The Liberty were down 42-33 at halftime, and cut it to two at 52-50 on two free throws from Plenette Pierson with 1:48 left in the third. Their only baskets in the fourth came on a Tina Charles layup with 8:32 left and a Pierson layup with 2:56 left. The Sparks outscored the Liberty 12-4 in the fourth.
Tina Charles led the Liberty with 20 points on 10-for-17 from the field, and Alex Montgomery had 10 points on 4-for-8 shooting. The Sparks were led by Nneka Ogwumike with 15 points, and Candace Parker and Lantel Lavender with 14 points each.
Head Coach Bill Laimbeer took issue with his team after the loss, saying “We didn’t play well. The tough losses are the ones where you lose by one or two when you play really well. I thought this was a loss that we just took. We didn’t have no firepower offensive-wise to get it done…Our offensive execution was poor, and it showed in the stat sheet, 54 points, four in the fourth. Turnovers, poor execution.
“I put the word fragile on the board in there (locker room). We’re a very fragile team, from a personnel-wise and the mental perspective. When something goes wrong, it affects us greatly. We can’t allow that to happen, and until we overcome that, we’re going to have games like this,” said Laimbeer.