{"id":115247,"date":"2026-04-25T17:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T20:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/breanna-stewart-flags-flow-state-loss-behind-libertys-2025-struggles-under-sandy-brondello\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T17:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T20:01:30","slug":"breanna-stewart-flags-flow-state-loss-behind-libertys-2025-struggles-under-sandy-brondello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/breanna-stewart-flags-flow-state-loss-behind-libertys-2025-struggles-under-sandy-brondello\/","title":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart Flags \u2018Flow State\u2019 Loss Behind Liberty\u2019s 2025 Struggles Under Sandy Brondello"},"content":{"rendered":"


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New York Liberty<\/a>\u2019s championship defense was meant to be a victory lap; instead, it ended in a disastrous first-round collapse. The Liberty suffered a disastrous first-round playoff setback in what turned out to be Sandy Brondello\u2019s final season with the team, losing to the Phoenix Mercury<\/a>, a team CBS Sports didn\u2019t even consider a title contender before the season. Now, veteran team member Breanna Stewart<\/a> has shared her two cents on the team\u2019s struggle-laden season.<\/p>\n

In her interview, Stewart offered an interesting perspective, stating that the team couldn\u2019t reach the \u2018Flow State\u2019 that they had reached in the championship-winning season.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t this it\u2019s a huge issue for me. You call it like a flow state,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cSo, when you\u2019re in that flow state where you\u2019re reading and going off with your teammtes now, you have to have a chemistry, and you have to like keept that. So, we had a lot of changes between our Championship to our 2025 season. In trying to kind of course correct and create that flow state again very quickly, it just didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now, flow state in the sports domain refers to the phase of a team when all its actions are perfectly in sync and rhythm. That\u2019s precisely the term you can associate the NY Liberty with in 2024, where every sequence of play had a stamp of dominance. The Big Three of Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu<\/a>, and Jonquel Jones<\/a>, along with veteran Courtney Vandersloot<\/a>, just dominated any team that they faced.<\/p>\n

After all, sweeping Atlanta<\/a> led by Rhyne Howard<\/a> in the first round of the playoffs or dominating the Las Vegas Aces<\/a> led by A\u2019ja Wilson<\/a>, 3-1 in the second round, is no easy feat. The Liberty did it pretty convincingly with their experienced coach, Brondello, at the helm, calling it a \u201cspecial time.\u201d But immediately next season, the tide changed, and the team got a bit decoupled.<\/p>\n

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First, they lost one of their key players in Vandersloot, who returned to the Chicago Sky<\/a>. Additionally, Jones, who gives an edge to the team on the glass, also sustained a right knee injury and missed quite a few games. The team did bring in Natasha Cloud<\/a> before the offseason to address Vandersloot\u2019s absence, but the chemistry the team had in 2024 never materialized under Sandy Brondello last year, with inconsistency regarding injuries and stagnation on the court at times.<\/p>\n

On top of that, the Liberty weren\u2019t clean on the court, especially on the boards, where the team saw a major drop-off from north of 36 rebounds per game in 2024 to around 33 last season. Stewart had also hinted that the team doesn\u2019t have a Championship-level mentality in the locker room midway through the season.<\/p>\n

After a loss to the Phoenix Mercury in the regular season, Stewart said, \u201cThis is not championship-level basketball at this point, and everybody needs to recognize that and understand that we need to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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