Aerial Powers powers Lynx to third victory of season, 84-77 at New York

With the Lynx in need of a hero late, Aerial Powers rose once again.

The Liberty, trailing by as many as 19 points in the third quarter, had battled all the way back to within a point of the Lynx with just under four minutes left in Sunday's game.

Then Powers took over. Fouled as she came down with an offensive rebound, she sank both free throws. She snagged a defensive board on the other end and raced back, pulling up for the jump shot. The ball bounced off the iron, but Powers' storybook day allowed for only one outcome — the shot rattled home.

With the comeback quashed, and a few more clutch plays from Bridget Carleton and Rachel Banham, the Lynx escaped New York with an 84-77 victory at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

"I think we all were like, 'OK, this is the point of the game where we need to stop their run,' because they had so much momentum going into, I think, five minutes left in the fourth quarter, and we did not want to let this again slip away," Powers said. "I think it was a team effort, and we were able to not only stop them from gaining complete momentum but score on the other end. It puts a little more pressure on them to score."

The victory — the second of the season for the Lynx over the Liberty — moved both teams to 3-8 records, breaking a two-game skid for the visitors and ending New York's two-game winning streak.

Powers finished with a career-high-tying 27 points on 11-for-22 shooting, including 3-for-3 on three-pointers. She added seven rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal.

Especially dominant in the first half, she scored 18 points, helping Minnesota go into halftime up 46-37, tied for the most points the Lynx have scored in a first half this year — even with the team's five-minute, 26-second scoreless stretch in the first quarter.

"Lately, I've just been in attack mode," Powers said. "That opens up a lot more for me, and I know it allows me not to think as much when I'm going to attack and I get a couple of fouls when someone fouls me, or I'm able to get my teammates involved. And then, I'm just seeing the floor a little bit better because I'm just in the zone."

Through the first five games of the season, she averaged eight points on 24.5% shooting from the field. Since then, with some help from Michael Jordan, she has averaged 17.5 points on 41.3% shooting from the field, despite coming off the bench the two games before Sunday.

Even within the game she flipped a switch. Powers started the fourth quarter with five consecutive misses before she took the reins.

"AP is AP," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. "She has a high belief in herself. So, I haven't seen anything different. As we kind of navigate it, like I said, the less efficient AP, and trying to figure out how to keep the confidence, be mindful of shot selection, that sort of thing. Probably, I think if you ask AP, there was probably a stretch where you start to think too much, and so, for all of them, we're trying to get out of that space of thinking and just go be who you are."

Powers' scoring explosion also opened the attack for the rest of the team. Sylvia Fowles scored 18 points while adding a team-high eight rebounds. Kayla McBride, who barely slept this week working around the clock recovering from a quadriceps contusion suffered against Atlanta, also scored 18.

Banham, who nailed the dagger two-pointer following a clutch block by Carleton on a last-ditch Sabrina Ionescu three, said Powers' energy lifted the team.

"That's just how AP is," Banham said of Powers' lighthearted encouragement during the game. "I think it's awesome. That just helps her get fired up. And then in turn, we're having fun, and it's just really great. I love the success of everybody else, and energy definitely rubs off on us."

The Star Tribune did not travel for this game. This article was written using the television broadcast and video interviews before and/or after the game.