After nearly three decades and several failed chances, the New York Liberty have finally won a WNBA title.
The Liberty, thanks to a second-half rally and a surge in overtime, beat the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals at the Barclays Center on Sunday night. That gave the Liberty their first championship in franchise history.
The Liberty, one of the founding members of the league, had been to the Finals five times before this fall, including last season when they were knocked out by the Las Vegas Aces. They reached the Finals in four of the first six WNBA seasons. Finally, though, the Liberty pulled it off to lift the trophy, marking the first professional basketball championship in the city since the New York Nets won the ABA title in 1976.
Sunday’s contest was the first winner-take-all overtime game in WNBA Finals history, which was fitting considering the rest of the chaotic series that came before it.
The Liberty didn’t waste any time in the extra period, either. Leoine Fiebich came out in overtime and immediately hit a 3-pointer. New York was just 1-of-19 from behind the arc up until that point. Nyara Sabally, after a steal on the other end, then sank a layup to put the Liberty up by five points. That marked their largest lead of the game.
The Liberty didn’t make another bucket but held Minnesota without a field goal the rest of the way in overtime to sneak out the five-point victory.
Sabrina Ionescu finished with just five points after shooting an awful 1-of-19 from the field and 1-of-10 from the 3-point line for the Liberty. Breanna Stewart, now with three titles to her name, finished with 13 points and 15 rebounds. The Liberty shot just 2-of-23 from behind the arc as a unit.
Jonquel Jones wins WNBA Finals MVP
Jonquel Jones was named the WNBA Finals MVP on Sunday night after leading the team with 17 points and six rebounds in the win.
Jones, who is in her sixth season in the league and her second with the Liberty, dominated the entire series. She averaged 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds over the five games. She dropped 24 points and 10 rebounds in their Game 1 overtime loss, and had 21 points and eight rebounds in Game 4 on Friday night.
Jones, who moved to the United States from the Bahamas when she was a child in order to play basketball, was the league’s MVP in 2021 when she was with the Connecticut Sun. She has one year left on her two-year deal with the Liberty.
Liberty rally after slow start
Though they pulled it out, the Liberty got out to another slow start on Sunday night. The Lynx took a 19-10 lead after the first quarter while holding New York to just 5-of-18 from the field shooting. Ionescu and Stewart combined to shoot 0-of-8, and the Lynx ended the period on a 7-0 run.
New York’s offensive issues continued in the second quarter, and Napheesa Collier and the Lynx took full advantage. Collier dropped 14 points in the first half, and helped lead a big defensive stand that forced the Liberty into a single field goal, a Stewart layup, in the final 4:30 of the second quarter.
Despite shooting 0-of-9 from behind the arc from the 3-point line and Ionescu failing to score any points in the opening 20 minutes, the Liberty ended the second quarter on an 8-2 burst — powered almost exclusively from the free-throw line — to cut the Lynx’s lead down to seven at the break.
Finally, the Liberty got their shots to fall. New York opened the second half on a 13-4 tear, and took its first lead of the game late in the third quarter after Sabally made a pair of layups off assists from Ionescu — who scored her first points of the game, albeit from the free-throw line, during that run.
By the end of the third quarter, the Liberty took a three-point lead after holding the Lynx to just 10 points in the period.
After missing 15 shots from the field in a row, which set a record for the most consecutive missed shots in a winner-take-all game in WNBA history, Ionescu got a shot to fall late in the fourth quarter. Ionescu drained a 3-pointer from the wing just before the three-minute mark, which marked the first made 3-pointer for the Liberty all night.
The four-point lead, though, didn’t hold. The Lynx rallied right back after a pair of free throws from Kayla McBride and a Collier bucket, which tied the game up. Collier came through again with a perfect reverse layup to jump ahead, but Stewart drew a foul with just 5.2 seconds left on a mid-range jumper. That sparked a challenge from the Lynx, which was unsuccessful, and sent Stewart to the free throw line. Stewart, who missed two free throws to tie the game just 30 seconds earlier, hit them both to tie it up. That set up the Lynx’s final chance, which was off the mark and sent the game into overtime.
Collier led the Lynx with 22 points and seven rebounds. She shot 11-of-23 from the field before she fouled out late in overtime. McBride added 21 points. They were the only two Lynx players to hit double figures. Minnesota made just one more 3-pointer than the Liberty did, too.
The Lynx were searching for a record fifth championship and first since their historic run that started more than a decade ago. The Lynx won four titles over a seven year span with stars Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, most recently in 2017. They’ve been back to the postseason every year since that final championship, but this is the first they made it back to the Finals.
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