By: Jennifer Portee
7/13/2026
You could feel it slipping. Up 20 late in the third, everything Toronto ran looked clean quick swings, confident shots, bodies moving like they trusted each other. Then the fourth quarter showed up, and with it, all the bad habits that have haunted this team for weeks. I’ve seen that look before. The hesitation. The extra dribble. The pass that’s a second late. And suddenly, a 20 point lead turns into a two-point game giving the Liberty hope. Still, Marina Mabrey wasn’t letting this one go.
She finished with 30 points, and it didn’t feel forced. She picked her spots, punished switches, and got downhill whenever New York got lazy on the perimeter. That’s back-to-back 30-point nights now, and at this point, it’s not a streak, it’s just who she is. When she gets rolling, the offense stops feeling like a system and starts feeling like survival for the defense. But even with Mabrey cooking, Toronto almost gave it right back.
New York turned the game around with pressure. Five Toronto turnovers during that fourth-quarter stretch, and every one of them felt avoidable. Sabrina Ionescu pushed the tempo, got to the rim, and kept the Liberty within striking distance. Breanna Stewart tied it at 91 with a minute and a half left a simple layup, but the kind that lands heavy when you’ve erased a 20-point hole.
That’s where the difference was this time. Instead of folding, Toronto executed. Julie Allemand who quietly controlled the entire game with 10 assists didn’t rush. She waited, read the help, and slipped a clean pass to Nyara Sabally cutting into space. Layup. Lead back. Fifty-two seconds left. That was the shot that held. The numbers won’t show how tense those final possessions felt, but Toronto finally defended without fouling and didn’t beat themselves. That alone is progress for a team that’s been letting games slip late in the fourth. They came into the night on a four-game losing streak and had already dropped multiple games this season after leading heading into the fourth. You could see that history creeping in.
This time, they pushed back. Sabally finished with 13, Laura Juskaite added 18, and Maria Conde chipped in 15 all timely, all needed, especially once the offense tightened up late.
For the Liberty, Ionescu’s 28 and Stewart’s 22 weren’t enough to save a Liberty team that’s now dropped seven of its last nine. They’ve got talent, but right now it’s coming in stretches instead of control.
And then there was the chaos. Late in the game, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton got ejected after tossing a shoe toward Mabrey the kind of moment that says everything about where frustrations are sitting. Those two had already exchanged words earlier in the third, picking up double technicals after a scuffle. By the final minutes, it boiled over. Messy ending, but a telling one.
Toronto didn’t play a clean game. Not even close. They nearly let another one slip, and the fourth-quarter issues are still very real they’ve been outscored by 49 points across their last five fourths. That doesn’t fix itself overnight. But they didn’t break. And for a team trying to figure out how to win, that might matter more than how they almost lost.