Liberty on their way to becoming ‘super team’

NEW YORK — With less than 90 seconds to go, Stefanie Dolson stepped back from the huddle and waved for the crowd to get to its feet and get loud.

The 7,102 at the Barclays Center, filling all but the curtained-off nose-bleeds, responded, calling “We want Han,” to get Han Xu off the bench for the finish. This is the kind of response those who assembled this potential juggernaut and cultural-icon-in-waiting, the New York Liberty, envisioned.

The game, too, was another reminder of what this assemblage of players, several of the best in the world in the prime of their careers, can become and what it could mean for women’s professional basketball in this media and entertainment capital.

“I don’t think anyone would sit here and say that’s not what they think they can be,” said Sun coach Stephanie White, after the Liberty’s emphatic 81-65 win Saturday, a game televised by CBS. “Certainly, on paper, you look at this roster and you think they have an opportunity to be exceptional.

“Now, we’ve seen a lot of these teams like this that have had opportunities to be exceptional, some of them have gone on to do that, some of them haven’t.”

On days like last Sunday, when the Liberty beat Indiana 90-73, running away in the first half, or Saturday, when they outscored the Sun 25-13 in the third, this looks like that “super team.”

At other times, like the season-opening loss to Washington or the sluggish first half against the better-than-expected Sun, the Liberty (2-1) look like a work in progress, like a skyscraper still surrounded by scaffolding.

“Just settling in,” said Breanna Stewart, who eventually took over the game in the way her fans at UConn are so used to seeing. “Our spacing. We were wanting something so badly that we didn’t have the patience to wait for the second side. Once we made reversals, and got them in motion, we were able to do that in the second half.”