Chicago Sky thumped by New York
The best offense in the WNBA met up with the best defense in the WNBA, and the defense won.
The defensive-minded New York Liberty boasts the league's lowest field goal percentage for opponents and also gets more defensive rebounds per game than any other team in the WNBA. Against the Chicago Sky on Friday night at Allstate Arena, the Liberty dominated in both categories en route to a 77-63 victory.
New York, in first place in the Eastern Conference, improves to 14-6 on the season. The Sky drops to 13-9.
"That's what we are. We're a solid defensive ball club," New York Liberty coach Bill Laimbeer said. "That's where we hang our hat.
"We work at (defense) every day. It's the first thing we work on at practice. We're very dedicated to being a defensive team. And we take great pride in it."
New York held the Sky, normally the best shooting team in the WNBA (46.2 percent) to just 29.9 percent from the field. The Sky hit on just 20-of-67 shots, its lowest field goal percentage in a game this season. The Liberty, up by as many as 19 points, also dominated the boards, 43-33 overall, and grabbed 9 more defensive rebounds than the Sky.
In terms of points, the Sky was held to its lowest output of the season, just three days after scoring the most points in franchise history, 106 points in a win over the Indiana Fever.
The Sky also managed only 6 assists against the Liberty, also a season-low.
"I felt like we were never able to get into a rhythm," said Sky forward Elena Delle Donne, who scored a team-high 17 points, but hit on just 4-of-12 field goals. "That's going to happen from game to game so we have to figure out a way to do it defensively or get out in transition and get easy baskets ... just to get ourselves going."
Former Sky guard Epiphanny Prince certainly got herself going, and she kept going and going.
Prince, traded to New York in the off-season for new Sky guard Cappie Pondexter, went off for 30 points against her former team, falling just 3 points shy of her career-high. Prince hit on 11-of-14 shots, including a 4-of-5 clip from 3-point range.
"Piph's a good player, she's an all-star player," Sky coach Pokey Chatman said. "Once she gets comfortable, the confidence grows and it's a different mentality. She's a good player and she showed it tonight."
New York center Tina Charles also showed that. She had 18 points and 12 rebounds.
For the Sky, Courtney Vandersloot (13 points) and Pondexter (12 points) also scored in double figures.
"It was frustrating, because when you're at home, you want to win," Pondexter said. "When everything's going wrong, it's definitely frustrating, easy to give up. But you know what? I like where we're at right now because I think it's a situation where we can learn from it."
Next game: Phoenix Mercury at Sky, 1 p.m. Sunday