Liberty beat Lynx 80-77 to pull within one victory of WNBA title

The strongest memory, the highlight that will be taken from Wednesday’s game at the Target Center, will be of Sabrina Ionescu. Her rising from the top of the key, dribbling left, stepping back then launching a 28-foot three-pointer that hit nothing but net.

That crucial shot broke a tie with one second remaining and lifted the New York Liberty to an 80-77 victory over the Lynx and a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five WNBA Finals.

But there was so much more for the Liberty, who can clinch the franchise’s first league title with a win Friday night at Target Center. For a lot of reasons. They took the Lynx’ early punch and rallied to the win before a record crowd of 19,521.

“We had the appropriate effort and focus on where we were doing,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. For two days the team had talked about starting games fast, and they did. Up 15 in the first quarter after digging deep holes in the first two games.

But: “As the game wore on, the offense got harder and harder for us,” Reeve said. “Our defense gave us a chance to win the game. Period.”

BOXSCORE: Liberty 80, Lynx 77

No argument there. Despite miss after miss down the stretch, the Lynx were in the game to the end, even after a four-point lead with 2:25 left in the fourth quarter had turned into a four-point deficit with less than a minute left.

But the offense just got harder. The Lynx shot 50% and scored 28 first-quarter points. Then they shot 19-for-55 and scored 49 points over the final 30 minutes.

Breanna Stewart led the Liberty with 30 points and Napheesa Collier had 22 for the Lynx on a day when they were both named to the All-WNBA first team. Ionescu barely missed the all-league first team, finishing sixth in the balloting.

“That was just a great All-WNBA second team performance,” Ionescu said, to much laughter in the postgame news conference. “That’s it.”

Kayla McBride had 19 for the Lynx, Bridget Carleton 14 and Courtney Williams scored 12 with eight assists.

The loss puts the Lynx in a must-win situation, a job that could get harder if center Alanna Smith cannot play. Smith battled both foul trouble and back pain that limited her to fewer than 20 minutes. But the Lynx were a plus-20 in that time.

Reeve had no update on Smith after the game.

“I feel like they were making plays at the end of shot clocks and like coach said, we were getting really good looks,” said Collier, who added nine rebounds. “We just weren’t executing on the offensive end. It puts a lot of pressure on our defense. I think we just need to make more shots, honestly.”

In a role reversal of Game 1, it was the Liberty who started slow, finished in a rush. Stewart scored 22 of her points in the second half, including 13 straight for New York from late in the third until early in the fourth as the Liberty was turning a 10-point deficit into a tie game with seven minutes left.

Three of the Liberty’s other starters — Ionescu, Jonquel Jones (also all-league second team) and Leonie Fiebich — all had 13.

“We were all kind of waiting for our moment,” Stewart said. “You know, waiting for the script to flip a little bit. They talked about it. They talked about first five minutes, gonna come out punching. They punched us in the face in the first quarter. Then we continued to wear them down.”

Still, the Lynx pushed to a 73-69 lead with 2:25 left when Williams scored on a 7-foot floater. But Jones hit a corner three, Collier missed and Jones scored again. Another Lynx miss and Ionescu hit a 24-footer.

Down four, Carleton scored. After a stop, Collier was fouled and hit both free throws with 16 seconds left to tie the game.

Then out of a timeout, the Liberty got the winner. Actually Ionescu didn’t even clearly remember the shot. “I had to go look at the video quickly to see, like, how far I was,” she said.

But there was no hesitation. Liberty coach Sandy Brondello told Ionescu it was her shot during the time out. As the clock wound down, with McBride covering her, Ionescu created some space with left-handed dribble and launched the shot, one she said she had visualized and practiced 1,000 times.

“Great player made a great shot,” McBride said. “I guarded her for 40 minutes.”

Said Ionescu: “Biggest shot of my career,” Ionescu said. “And hopefully not the last.”