Liberty pass physicality test, break WNBA record in blowout win over Sky

CHICAGO — Jonquel Jones said Thursday’s game at Chicago wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, noting how physical the Sky play.

Jones was right about the physicality, but Thursday’s 99-74 victory appeared to be a piece of cake for the defending WNBA champions, who improved to 2-0 on the season.

Breanna Stewart and Leonie Fiebich had towels draped on their shoulders, and Jones pulled on a Liberty T-shirt in the fourth quarter. Sabrina Ionescu was laughing with her teammates on the bench.

The typical things dominant teams do during blowouts.

After making only four 3-pointers on 19 percent shooting in their season-opening win Saturday, the Liberty broke a league record Thursday for most 3-pointers by a team in a game.

Kennedy Burke drained the Liberty’s 19th 3-pointer in the fourth quarter.

As a team, they shot 55.9 percent from downtown.

Natasha Cloud had 18 points and eight assists, and Burke added 17 points off the bench.

It wasn’t a perfect game for the Liberty.

Their offense looked clunky or too sped up at times.

That would have been more problematic against a more organized, high-functioning team such as Caitlin Clark’s Fever, against whom the Liberty play Saturday.

The Liberty were whistled for traveling on multiple occasions and committed 20 turnovers.

But against the Sky, it didn’t matter.

Chicago is a team searching for identity and in the process of installing a new system under first-year head coach Tyler Marsh.

The Sky still are establishing cohesion among their three new starting guards and two young post players, Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese.

That allowed the Liberty to run away with the game in the second quarter.

Even with Ionescu sitting most of it after picking up her third foul, they managed to outscore the Sky 25-9 to carry a 21-point lead into halftime.

The Sky came out of the locker room swinging.

They rattled off eight unanswered points to trim the Liberty’s lead to 13, which forced coach Sandy Brondello to take a timeout.

That was the closest the Sky would get.

Moments later, Reese was whistled for an offensive foul and then received her second technical foul of the season for arguing the call.

The Liberty watched their lead swell once again to 21 by the end of the third quarter.