Free throws either make or break teams.

Unfortunately for the Dream, they couldn't catch the break.

New York converted 14 of 16 free throws in the fourth quarter to walk away with an 86-76 victory Sunday at Philips Arena.

With just under four minutes remaining in the game, the Liberty's Cathrine Kraayeveld converted all three of her foul shots after Kasha Terry fouled her from behind the arc. Then, Erika De Souza fell down and consequently was called for fouling Ashley Battle. The five easy points gave New York a healthy enough lead to hang on to the victory and hand Atlanta (3-24) its fifth consecutive loss.

Meanwhile, after hitting 19-of-20 free throws in Friday's game, the Dream shot 69 percent (20 of 29) from the line Sunday.

"That's a lot of free throws," Dream coach Marynell Meadors said. "We just missed them. ... Sometimes you do that and sometimes you don't."

Still, the Dream hung with the Liberty and trailed by only one point in each of the first three quarters.

But Atlanta gave up 22 points off of 19 turnovers, which was too much to make up for, even with a new starting lineup to shake things up.

Dream rookie Tamera Young replaced leading scorer Betty Lennox in the starting lineup. The eight-year veteran was previously the only player on Atlanta's roster to start all 26 games. Meadors said the switch was in part to get off to a better start and in part to take some pressure off Lennox.

"She's got some personal issues that's she's dealing with right now and I think she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders when she doesn't score for us," Meadors said.

It appeared to be all the motivation Lennox needed to snap out of her recent funk.

Heading into Sunday's matchup, Lennox's points and minutes had been down the last three games. She played half of her usual 30 minutes per game, and she shot 4-of-12 from the field and 0-for-7 from 3-point range.

Though she reclaimed her throne Sunday with a team-high 18 points on 5-of-12 shooting, Lennox said she didn't feel like herself the entire game.

"Even when I scored, I didn't get excited," Lennox said. "I'm just really looking forward to this break for me to be mentally away from this so I can rejuvenate and come back and do the things that I really love and enjoy doing and that's playing basketball."

Lennox said she is going home to Oklahoma during the Olympic break to deal with some personal family problems, though she wouldn't elaborate.

Six of the players will go on vacation for the first week, and the second six will enjoy their time off the second week. Atlanta picks up practice again Aug. 11 to prepare for their Aug. 29 matchup against Connecticut, the first of their remaining seven games of the season.

Forward Jennifer Lacy will spend some of her break mending from a partial tear of in her meniscus in her left knee. She did not play against New York because of swelling in the knee, which has been causing her problems since the Sacramento game on July 18.

"She didn't want to risk hurting it," Meadors said. "We're going to try to do some rehab to get the swelling out of it."