There were plenty of moments in the second half where the Liberty were out of shape, where they were far from the version of super-team that made everything – at times – seem simple, but this one, in the end of the fourth quarter, was the dagger. .
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed her second free throw.
Kayla Thornton had recovered the rebound. But as she looked to reset the offense, Breanna Stewart had begun setting a screen instead of preparing for Thornton’s pass — as the forward seemed to expect.
The Lynx regained possession and Bridget Carleton scored a three-pointer at the other end to extend their lead to 11.
So what started out as a promising Commissioners Cup – with the chance to become champions again and take home their share of the $500,000 prize pool – turned out to be disastrous for the Liberty, and ended in a 94- 89 at UBS Arena Tuesday night.
Frustrations had already mounted early in the evening when the game was moved out of the Barclays Center with the first round of the NBA draft on Wednesday.
And it all ended with the Liberty failing to make a potential playoff run, or even a glimpse of the WNBA Finals.
Carleton led the Lynx with 23 points, while Napheesa Collier added 21 points and six rebounds.
Everything was working for the Liberty — and Sabrina Ionescu in particular — the moment she intercepted Collier’s pass and sprinted down the court for an uncontested layup. Ionescu unleashed a roar by returning to the bench when the Lynx took a timeout.
Liberty’s lead extends to 10, the largest in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
But then everything changed. It stayed that way too.
A 33-13 run by the Lynx spanned the final 3:43 of the first quarter, the entire third quarter and even the first two minutes of the fourth.
At that point, it was Liberty who led by 10. Ionescu had a point in the second half. Jonquel Jones didn’t really score until he made free throws with 80 seconds left.
Stewart led the Liberty with 24 points and single-handedly brought them back into the game in the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run of his own.
Ionescu finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds.
But the Lynx’s strong second-half defense complemented a balanced attack to win their first Commissioners Cup and establish themselves as a serious contender for the WNBA title in October.
The game, however, also came with an underlying storyline that it needed to be moved from the Barclays Center.
The frustration was palpable before their morning shoot Tuesday, when Stewart spoke about it spontaneously.
Jones used the words “frustrated” and “annoyed” to express the Liberty’s displeasure at not actually hosting the title game despite going 5-0 — with all those games in an eight-day span — only to become the representative of the Eastern Conference.
But once the game arrived, the Liberty offense still clicked like it has at so many other times over the past two seasons, and at the center of that was Ionescu.
She led them with 18 points at halftime. She hit a 3-pointer from the Commissioner’s Cup logo, connected on a deep floater and stole a pass that allowed her to run down the court for an uncontested layup.
Ionescu’s evolution in a healthy fourth year of her WNBA career — the unblocked floater, the record-setting 3-point shot that still remains her most prolific strength — has given Stewart time to get going.
But eventually, the Lynx generated a response.
They capitalized on a series of missed Liberty turnovers – where the bulk of their 20 occurred – and relied on decisive shots from Carleton and Collier to build a double-digit lead.
Thus, for the second consecutive time in the championship, Liberty’s title attempt ended in heartbreak.
The first came in October, when they fell to the Aces in all four games and missed an opportunity to achieve the type of eternity that has eluded the franchise since its inception.
“Everyone has a scar,” head coach Sandy Brondello said before the game, “…it’s a memory, but scars heal too.” »
Less than a year later, however, the Lynx gave the Liberty another one.
New York Post
