After gaining a key advantage, the New York Liberty have a chance to wrap up a playoff berth as early as Tuesday night. The first step for the Liberty is earning a third consecutive road win over the San Antonio Silver Stars. <\/p>\n
New York (14-17) is one game ahead of Chicago for fourth place in the Eastern Conference and clinched a crucial tiebreaker with a 75-68 comeback win at Washington on Sunday. The Liberty finished with a 10-12 record in conference play and the Sky can't earn more than nine such victories, so Chicago needs to finish with a better overall record than New York - which won't be possible if it loses at Seattle and the Liberty win Tuesday. <\/p>\n
The Liberty's season high-tying third straight win almost didn't happen as they trailed by nine with 8:57 remaining against the last-place Mystics. Cappie Pondexter, though, scored 10 of her 30 points after that point and Nicole Powell added 10 of her season-high 18. <\/p>\n
Pondexter has averaged 24.3 points in her past four games and 10.0 rebounds over her last three, boosting her season marks to 20.7 points and 4.6 boards. <\/p>\n
\"Cappie. She's been awesome. She's our MVP and the most important player to her team of anybody in the league,\" said coach John Whisenant, whose team is 5-1 this month. <\/p>\n
Pondexter had 23 points and eight rebounds against San Antonio (19-12) on July 8, and Essence Carson scored a season-high 25. However, that wasn't enough to help New York add to a five-game win streak in the series. <\/p>\n
Jia Perkins scored a season-high 24 points in the 94-81 road victory, while Becky Hammon and Sophia Young had 23 and 21, respectively. <\/p>\n
That win was among a franchise-record 12 in a row for the Silver Stars, but they've gone 3-7 since then. They failed to win their third straight Sunday, falling 80-70 to Tulsa. <\/p>\n
The defeat dealt a serious blow to San Antonio's hopes of securing home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The Silver Stars trail Los Angeles by 2 1\/2 games for the No. 2 seed, though they hold the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the head-to-head series. <\/p>\n
A San Antonio loss or Sparks win over Phoenix on Tuesday would make the Silver Stars the No. 3 seed and give Los Angeles home court for the opening best-of-three series. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Originally posted here: <\/p>\n
Liberty-Silver Stars Preview<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After gaining a key advantage, the New York Liberty have a chance to wrap up a playoff berth as early as Tuesday night. The first step for the Liberty is earning a third consecutive road win over the San Antonio Silver Stars Continue reading