This didn’t happen at all last year.
Not when Sabrina Ionescu missed time with a hamstring injury.
Not when Courtney Vandersloot sat out the second game of a back-to-back in late July, either.
Through 15 games in 2024, even amid Vandersloot’s six-game absence due to personal reasons, the Liberty — and their current nucleus — had also avoided another injury and the need to navigate without two starters.
That changed Thursday, when Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was a late addition to the availability report with a right knee injury and went from full to questionable to out in a matter of hours.
Rookie Leonie Fiebich found out she was making her first start after the morning shootaround.
Kayla Thornton filled in for Vandersloot.
But the Liberty managed to cobble together enough offense — and compensate enough for the injury to their defensive anchor — to defeat the Sparks, 93-80, at Barclays Center on Thursday and avoided dropping consecutive games for the second time this season.
Sabrina Ionescu led the Liberty with 31 points, while Jones added 22 before fouling out.
“I think just the next-person-up mentality is really it,” Breanna Stewart said. “Knowing that we had eight players today, like nobody was using that as an excuse.”
Laney-Hamilton, who’d started every game this season and usually faced the task of guarding an opponent’s top player, dealt with knee swelling that dated back to their last road trip.
Head coach Sandy Brondello was hopeful pregame that if Laney-Hamilton wasn’t available Thursday, she’d be able to return Saturday when the Liberty and Sparks meet again.
That didn’t solve their short-term conundrum, though.
Brondello turned to Fiebich, a productive spark off the bench. Ionescu and Jones helped pace the offense in the first half with 15 and 11 points, respectively, while the Liberty prevented anyone on the Sparks from hitting double digits across the opening 20 minutes.
Los Angeles was also navigating without rookie — and No. 2 overall pick — Cameron Brink after she tore her ACL earlier in the week.
For most of the opening 20 minutes, though, Los Angeles kept within striking distance — and really just two or three points away — after an early six-point advantage was erased.
Fiebich’s crosscourt pass was picked off, and Rae Burrell drew a foul in transition.
Then, after another Liberty possession with good ball movement fizzled out with a miss, Dearica Hamby tied the game with a basket.
Behind Jones and Ionescu, the Liberty still took a seven-point lead into halftime.
Jones, while double-teamed on the left block, threaded a nifty pass to an open Ivana Dojkic for a 3 and one of her eight assists.
She and Ionescu connected for a layup off a screen, too.
And eventually, they were the duo that sparked the run that made the Liberty’s lead insurmountable.
The Sparks had pulled within five minutes by the 5:30 mark of the third quarter after Ionescu and Stewart couldn’t connect on an inbounds pass and it bounced away.
Los Angeles’ basket following that turnover prompted the Liberty to take a timeout, and that was followed by a 16-5 run across the next three-plus minutes — capped by three combined 3s from Ionescu and Jones — to build a 15-point lead.
The Sparks trimmed that to five again and kept it around that point with three minutes left. Jones, by that point, was in foul trouble.
It took until Fiebich scored her first points of the game with a corner 3 with two minutes left, until Ionescu followed with her final 3 with 70 seconds left, for the outcome to be decided.
“I mean, it helps that my teammates trust me and still pass me the ball after I miss four 3s,” Fiebich said.
At the center of everything, though, was Jones and Ionescu.
Jones assisted on three of Ionescu’s 11 baskets.
Ionescu assisted on five of Jones’ nine makes, too.
And when posed with the frequency of how often Ionescu has assisted on the star forward’s baskets this season, she joked to Jones that she’s “gotta buy me lunch.”
For a shorthanded Liberty lineup, they provided enough to escape with a win.
