Liberty's Emma Meesseman scores 19 points off bench to lift playoff-bound club past Mystics

Sandy Brondello seized the moment.

It was two hours before her Liberty squad completed the home portion of its 2025 WNBA regular season against the Washington Mystics Tuesday night at Barclays Center, and the coach was being pressed about its readiness for the upcoming playoffs.

Brondello took the opportunity to express her confidence with the Liberty as well as issue a call-to-arms.

“I’ve always said I’m confident in our full team,” Brondello said prior to the Liberty’s 75-66 win over the Mystics. “I really am. That’s why we’re being built. We’re being built obviously with the players that we have. We won last year but it’s how do we add to what we did last year to be better? We haven’t seen that this year but I’m excited about seeing it. Hopefully my vision, obviously, comes to real life and we can have a great playoff series.”

Entering the final two games of what has been an uneven season, the Liberty (26-17) are locked into the fifth seed for the playoffs, which begin Sunday. That’s the known. The unknown is who their opponent will be. Atlanta (29-14), Las Vegas (28-14),and Phoenix (27-15) are battling for the second, third, and fourth seeds.

The Aces and Mercury each played late Tuesday night, while the Dream will complete their regular season Wednesday at Connecticut.

However the machinations play out, the Liberty are guaranteed to meet a league heavyweight in the best-of-three first-round series.

Brondello has spent much of the season reconfiguring the roster due player availability. But with a complete roster for the first time since the very early portion of the season, Brondello said her plan was to use the home finale against Washington (16-28) and the last game of the regular season at Chicago on Thursday to set the Liberty’s rotation and develop cohesion.

“We’re going to lean into these next two games [and play] really good basketball (to) get the chemistry and rotation,” Brondello said. “Building that confidence going into that first game. Our focus is going on the road to win a game in a really tough environment against a really good team. We have to trust what we do is good enough to beat anyone.”

On Fan Appreciation Night, Brondello opted to go with a starting lineup of Breanna Stewart, Leonie Fiebich, Jonquel Jones, Natasha Cloud, and Sabrina Ionescu, with Kennedy Burke, Emma Meesseman, and Rebekah Gardner coing off the bench.

The results were promising.

The Liberty led for 33 of the game’s 40 minutes, and shot 42.2% from the field. Of their 27 made baskets, 21 came off of assists. Meesseman led the Liberty with 19 points. Stewart finished with 14 and Jones recorded a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Cloud chipped in with 11.

“It’s good just for us to be able to look at not just the starting five but our entire team,” Jones said. “Ultimately [it is a] good feeling that everybody is ready to play and suited up.”