Jonquel Jones exits loss with ankle injury in Liberty concern

CHICAGO — Liberty center Jonquel Jones exited Tuesday’s 93-86 loss to the Chicago Sky with a left ankle injury and never returned. Jones appeared to know something was wrong the moment she hit the ground.  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Madeline Kenney about all things Liberty and WNBA.She pulled her left leg up to her body and held her ankle, grimacing in pain.

She eventually was helped onto her feet, limped off the floor and headed toward the locker room with 3:31 left in the first quarter. The team initially said she was “questionable” to return during the second quarter. But Jones didn’t join the team on the floor after halftime, and a team spokesperson confirmed shortly after that Jones was ruled out. Coach Chris DeMarco didn’t have an immediate update on Jones following the game. “She’s just going to be evaluated in the coming days,” he said. The Liberty have been hit badly by injuries this season.They’ve played just two complete games at full strength. New York has been without Satou Sabally since late June and Leonie Fiebich since early July.

Sabrina Ionescu and Marine Johannès, both healthy Tuesday, have also missed games this season with injuries. “It’s tough,” Breanna Stewart said.“Obviously, we hope JJ will be back quickly but honestly I think Han (Xu) stepped up to the challenge pretty well.

… As a team … we’ve been through this far too many times and our response needs to be better.When one person goes down, we need to just be even better and next-one-up mentality.” Stewart set another record. She entered Tuesday needing only 14 points to reach 3,000 with the Liberty.  Sign up for Madeline Kenney's Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter.

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