With the acknowledgment that I may have been imprisoned by the moment, I called the New York Liberty’s win over the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday afternoon a clear moral loss. The Aces, missing A’ja Wilson, overcame a 20-point deficit to take the lead in the game’s final stages, eerily reminiscent to their Game 4, WNBA Finals clinching victory at the Barclays Center last season, up until the Liberty briefly got it together in the closing seconds.
But the damage had been done. That the game was that tight at all, that the Liberty froze while the Aces’ B-team played with such freedom was an indictment beyond anything the scoreboard could say.