Key events
First, the glass-half-empty way of looking at it …
Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu struggled. A lot. They finished the game shooting 10-for-36. From 3-point range: 0-for-9. Stewart still had a double-double with 11 and 11, including six offensive rebounds.
Also, various academics have concluded that “home advantage” is partially due to the officials not being able to fight the temptation to give the home team a few close decisions. And … yeah.
Now the glass-half-full …
Courtney Williams, who played college basketball at South Florida and has only been an All-Star once while playing for five teams in nine years (four in the last four) is having a series for the ages. She had 15 points and seven assists, and it seemed like every last one came at an important time.
Alanna Smith played through a back injury and managed 30 minutes on the court. She hit both 3-pointers she attempted and grabbed seven rebounds.
While Stewart and Ionescu had an off night, Napheesa Collier was quietly effective. She only scored 14 points on 4-of-10 shooting (4-for-6 from the free throw line), but she played all 40 minutes and added nine rebounds, four assists and four steals.
Kayla McBride scored 19 points, some of them from mind-boggling angles.
And it was every bit the highly competitive contest we expected.
Which means, going back to glass-half-empty, that Game 5 will probably be a blowout. You have to like New York’s chances at home. A quick check of the odds shows that the people in charge of such things agree.
But it’s going to be must-see TV in any case. The WNBA has had a breakthrough season, thanks in part to Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, and it’s going to end with a winner-take-all game in New York.
See you then. Thanks for tuning in, and I’ll be back in about 44 hours.
Minnesota wins Game 4
Ionescu is tightly guarded and has to send it to the rafters. It’s off the mark.
Join us for Game 5 on Sunday.
Liberty 80-82 Lynx, 2.0 seconds left, 4th quarter: The foul is on Ionescu, who was judged to have backed up into Carleton as the Canadian grabbed the ball and shot. I don’t buy that call, either.
Carleton hits both. Timeout New York. They’ll have to fling it in and shoot right away.
Minnesota can hold for the last shot.
Williams pulls up and misses. Carleton gets the rebound … and she’s fouled!
Liberty 80-80 Lynx, 18.3 seconds left, 4th quarter: Stewart misses the rim with the shot clock running down. That’s a shot-clock violation. Why didn’t the Liberty call timeout?
Ball to Minnesota.
Timeout Minnesota.
Jones misses, but Stewart gets the rebound. 25 seconds.
McBride misses a tough drive. Collier saves the ball, but it goes to New York.
Reminder of what’s at stake: The New York Liberty have never won the WNBA championship. That might not be the case in a couple of minutes.
How close has this game been?
First quarter: NY 23-23 MIN
Second: NY 22-23 MIN
Third: NY 18-18
Fourth: NY 17-16
Liberty 80-80 Lynx, 1:10 left, 4th quarter: You know that player in your pickup basketball games who is so infuriating because they hit all these ridiculous shots that seem like they’re all luck but probably aren’t? That’s Kayla McBride. She just did it again.
Ionescu scores a tough one inside.
Williams misses.
Stewart feeds Jones – she scores, and she’s fouled! Her free throw would tie it!
And it does.
Timeout Minnesota.
Shifting to quick-action posting for the finish here …
Liberty 75-77 Lynx, 2:39 left, 4th quarter: New York loses the challenge. The ball last hit Collier, but the referees determined that Stewart committed a foul, so Minnesota gets the ball BUT Stewart isn’t charged with her fifth foul because that’s outside the parameters of a replay. Got that? I don’t.
Stewart misses.
Stewart swats away a shot by Smith.
Stewart misses again.
Smith is left wide open inside. Minnesota leads.
Jones finally misses a 3-pointer.
Minnesota rotates the ball nicely. Carleton hits a 3. The lead is five.
Fiebich answers for New York!
Liberty 72-72 Lynx, 4:48 left, 4th quarter: McBride somehow gets a bank shot from an obtuse angle to fall. Tied again.
Great defense from Minnesota, but I’m not sure how Stewart missed that shot right before the buzzer.
The commentators think Stewart just got away with what would’ve been her fifth and final foul. I don’t buy it, and I’d venture to say I’ve refereed more games than they have. (Granted, they’re soccer games.)
New York uses a challenge to determine possession, which basically means it’s a timeout.
Quick peek at the stats …
New York: Stewart has finally hit a few shots and has eight rebounds, along with three steals, but she and Ionescu are 0-for-7 from 3-point range. Fiebich has picked up the slack with 16 points, and then Jones is simply having a monster game at both ends of the court – 18 points with just one missed shot, seven rebounds (all defensive), two blocks.
Minnesota: Williams (15 points), McBride (14) and Collier (14) are still the scoring leaders, but Smith now has 10.
Liberty 72-70 Lynx, 5:47 left, 4th quarter: Zandalasini! The Italian player drives and scores inside to put Minnesota up by four.
Fiebich draws a foul from Zandalasini in an all-Euro matchup. The German player hits two free throws. She has 14.
Williams misses, but Stewart mistimes her jump for the rebound, and Collier snags it.
McBride shoots as the shot clock winds down but can’t get it to go.
Ionescu drives. It’s tied. Again.
Jones swats away a shot from Zandalasini, and Fiebich is somehow left alone at the other end for an uncontested layup. Timeout Minnesota.
What a game.
Liberty 66-68 Lynx, 8:07 left, 4th quarter: Jones finally misses a shot.
Zandalasini scores on a nifty turnaround.
Stewart misses. then ties up Juhasz for a jump ball.
Jones scores … NO! Collier draws the offensive foul. They don’t challenge, which is surprising. New York has gotten by far the worst of the officiating tonight.
Ionescu rushes a 3-point shot as if in desperation. But the Liberty get a defensive stop, and Stewart scores on a reverse layup and draws a foul. She hits the free throw.
End 3rd quarter: Liberty 63-64 Lynx
Collier hits a free throw, then misses the second. But the rebound comes out at an awkward angle, and the ball is tied up for a jump ball. Liberty control.
Vanderslute tries a very strange pass, and the Liberty can’t keep control of the ball. Bridget Carleton is fouled in transition and hits both free throws. Lead change.
Ionescu comes in for the last possession of the quarter, but no one is showing for the ball. Turnover.
Long impossible shot for the Lynx as the buzzer sounds.
We’re 10 minutes of playing time away from the Liberty’s first championship or a Game 5.
Liberty 63-61 Lynx, 0:45 left, 3rd quarter: Ionescu takes a break. Stewart is on the bench with four fouls. The Liberty are playing without their two big guns.
Fiebich tries a shot from Caitlin Clark range. Nope.
Williams misses. Can’t hit them all.
Sabally drives, and I’m not sure why the refs didn’t send her to the free throw line.
More misses and turnovers.
Sabally drives, and this time, there’s a foul. But it’s an offensive foul. I don’t like that call, either.
Williams misses. Can’t hit them all. Sabally gets the rebound.
Vandersloot drives for her first points of the night to restore New York’s lead.
Liberty 61-61 Lynx, 2:33 left, 3rd quarter: A sloppy return to action for each team. Williams is back in the game.
Stewart hits an impressive bucket in transition – once again, the scorers can’t seem to agree on whether it’s a 2-pointer or 3. They settle on 2.
And oh dear – Collier just drew Stewart’s fourth foul. She hits one of two free throws.
Wild, ill-advised shot from Ionescu. Williams drives at the other end, unbalances the defense, and dishes to a wide-open Smith, who practically has time to autograph the ball before sinking a 3-pointer to tie the game once again.
Timeout, New York.
Liberty 59-55 Lynx, 5:02 left, 3rd quarter: Natisha Hiedeman left the court in the first quarter as the ball jammed her thumb. That thumb has since been heavily taped, and she’s in to give Williams a break, as Williams tries to catch her breath on the bench. And she drives, earns two free throws and scores both.
But Jones hits her third 3-pointer – she’s 5-for-5! – and after a defensive stop, the Liberty drive back and get a bucket and the and-one for Fiebich to put the Liberty back in front.
McBride misses a layup. Back down the court, back to Jones. She can’t go 6-for-6, can she? With four of those shots being threes? Yes she can, and Minnesota takes a timeout.
That’s a 9-0 run in just over a minute.
Liberty 50-53 Lynx, 6:46 left, 3rd quarter: Alanna Smith has been battling a back injury and has struggled to score inside, but she does just fine outside the arc, easily knocking down a 3.
Jones answers for New York. What a game she’s having.
Bridget Carleton hits a layup, and that’s the last made shot for nearly a minute. Stewart ends the drought with a tip-in.
New York clamps down on defense, and time starts to run out on a Minnesota possession, but there’s Courtney Williams again with an acrobatic layup.
The Liberty’s dominant duo of Stewart and Ionescu combined to hit 5 of 20 shots in the first half. They missed all five 3-pointers and attempted no free throws. Ionescu has three turnovers; Stewart has three fouls.
But Betnijah Laney-Hamilton has a pair of 3s among her 10 points, Jonquel Jones has 9 points on 3-for-3 shooting, and Leonie Fiebich has also chipped in 9.
Minnesota have three players who are doing it all. McBride has 14 points. Williams has 13 and three assists. Collier has 12 and three assists along with three steals. The rest of the team has combined for seven points.
New York has a massive rebounding edge, 21-13. Minnesota has only one offensive board.
Halftime: Liberty 45-46 Lynx
This has to be one of the worst halves of playoff basketball Breanna Stewart has ever played. She picks up her third foul as McBride scores, then converts the free throw.
Fiebich scores on a strong drive.
Ionescu, to her astonishment, is called for a foul on Zandalasini. But the Lynx player misses both free throws. Ionescu can’t get a shot away before the buzzer sounds.
Somewhere along the line, officials decided that Zandalasini’s 3-pointer with 1:58 left was actually a 2-pointer. That resolves a discrepancy between the score ESPN was showing on its screen vs. what the stadium scoreboard and ESPN’s site said. Weird.
Liberty 41-40 Lynx, 1:08 left, 2nd quarter: Stewart doubles her scoring output for the night with a layup.
Williams misses a couple for Minnesota but delivers a slick pass to Zandalasini for the corner 3 to tie it. (UPDATE: This has been downgraded to a 2-pointer.)
Sabally hits a pair of free throws. NY up by 2.
Williams hits a shot from just inside the arc and will have a chance to make it a 3-point play anyway – Stewart fouled her. Williams hits the free throw.
Liberty 39-38 Lynx, 3:35 left, 2nd quarter: Ionescu unleashes her third bad pass of the game, Williams hits the pullup jumper in transition (she’s now 5-for-7 for 10 points), and New York will take a timeout.
Liberty 39-36 Lynx, 3:48 left, 2nd quarter: Stewart will take a break. New York struggles to get a shot away, but Fiebich flings an awkward shot under pressure and knocks it down.
Collier hits a jumper to trim the New York lead.
Liberty 37-34 Lynx, 5:52 left, 2nd quarter: Williams is simply feeling it. She pulls up for a shot that no rational person other than herself and possible Steph Curry would attempt. Drains it.
But Fiebich hits a corner 3, and Stewart steals a pass and drives the length of the court for her first points of the game.
Carleton hits a 3 for the Lynx. Ionescu immediately finds a seam in the Lynx defense and drives for an easy layup.
Once again, it’s Williams answering for the Lynx.
Stewart gets another steal, and Ionescu swiftly scores.
Timeout Minnesota.
Liberty 28-27 Lynx, 8:11 left, 2nd quarter: Stewart passes to Jones in the paint, and she draws a foul. The Liberty maintain possession and work the ball to Stewart, who can’t find the handle.
Lynx turnover, and Ionescu feeds Jones in transition.
Courtney Williams immediately ties the game again.
Laney-Hamilton gets into the corner and knocks down her second 3-pointer of the game. She has 10 already.
Collier draws a shooting foul from Stewart and hits both free throws.
End 1st quarter: Liberty 23-23 Lynx
Laney-Hamilton bangs into McBride, and the Lynx player is down injured. Officials review the play to consider whether it’s a flagrant foul. The announcers say yes. I don’t think so – I think she stumbled as she made contact with another player. The officials agree with me. I am a soccer referee, after all.
Still, it’s three free throws for McBride. She misses the first but knocks down the next two. She has 11 points.
Fiebich levels the score.
The Lynx have a chance to get the last shot of the quarter, but McBride knocks down Fiebich off the ball, and the refs spot it.
So the Liberty get a shot and get it to Stewart.
And she misses her seventh shot.
If you told New York before the game that their top scorer would be 0-for-7 and the score would still be tied, they’d probably be happy with that. Then they’d ask you for tomorrow’s lottery numbers, because you’re clearly psychic.
Liberty 21-21 Lynx, 0:44 left, 1st quarter: The struggling Alanna Smith has departed, replaced by Dorka Juhasz, who has played scant minutes in the postseason.
Good defense from Minnesota forces a bad shot from the struggling Stewart, and McBride scores on an emphatic drive, also drawing a foul. The free throw puts Minnesota in front.
Stewart misses once again, but Nyara Sabally is there for the putback.
Collier hits a 3. Minnesota in front.
Laney-Hamilton hits a jumper. Tied.
Liberty 17-15 Lynx, 2:03 left, 1st quarter: Superb ball movement from the Liberty, leading to a basket off a strong post move from Jones.
A miss at the other end, but Ionescu makes a bad pass. That’s a couple for her.
More turnovers each way, but McBride hits a 3 to draw the Lynx level.
Laney-Hamilton scores under intense pressure inside to put New York back in front.
Liberty 13-12 Lynx, 4:15 left, 1st quarter: Collier’s 3-pointer falls gently through the net to reinstate the Minnesota lead.
After a miss at each end (including another one by Smith), Kayla Thornton hits a 3 to swing the lead the other way.
Collier turns it over, and we’ll take a timeout.
Liberty 10-9 Lynx, 5:08 left, 1st quarter: Smith again misses inside under heavy pressure. Jones is fouled at the other end and hits two free throws to put New York in front.
Liberty 8-9 Lynx, 5:28 left, 1st quarter: Smith gets the close-range shot this time to extend Minnesota’s lead. Ionescu answers with a gorgeous drive.
Bad miss for Minnesota, but then Stewart has her third miss of the game. The 30-point scorer in Game 3 doesn’t look comfortable here.
Collier steals an Ionescu pass, the Lynx race out on the break, and McBride hits a 3 from the corner.
Jonquel Jones immediately answers.
Liberty 3-4 Lynx, 7:45 left, 1st quarter: A few misses at the outset, but Courtney Williams hits a smooth pullup jumper and then feeds Collier for a layup to get the home team out fast, just as they did in Game 3.
But Smith misses badly inside, and Laney-Hamilton hits a 3 to get New York on the board.
Tipoff … we’re underway …
Game time is … whenever. Apologies to non-US readers who are perplexed when the schedules say a game started at 8 p.m. when it clearly does not.
We’re getting player intros now.
Meet the Liberty
Before Caitlin Clark, there was Sabrina Ionescu – a college player with sublime skills who elevated the sport. She and Breanna Stewart are as formidable a duo as has ever existed in the WNBA. This year, Stewart has averaged 20.5 points and 8.5 rebounds, while Ionescu’s season stat line is 18.2 points and 6.2 assists. Jonquel Jones, the 2021 league MVP with Connecticut, has been a steady third scoring option in her second season with the team.
In Game 3, while Ionescu struggled through much of the contest, Stewart powered her way to 30 points and 11 rebounds. Ionescu made the clutch shots late.
New York had two players on the US roster this summer (Stewart and Ionescu) and two players for Germany – Nyara Sabally and Leonie Fiebich.
The Liberty posted the best record in the regular season at 32-8. The Lynx were second at 30-10.
Meet the Lynx
The coach will be familiar to those who saw the Olympics – she’s Cheryl Reeve, who coached Team USA to gold this summer by the narrowest of margins.
Reeve was in charge for all four of the Lynx’s championships – every odd year from 2011 to 2017 – thanks to the consistent excellence of Seimone Augustus (newly inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame), Lindsey Whalen (already in the Hall), Maya Moore (sure to be in the Hall soon) and Sylvia Fowles (also Hall-bound, surely).
The key player now is Napheesa Collier, the only Lynx player on the US roster this summer. She averaged 20.4 points and 9.7 rebounds per game in the regular season. Kayla McBride, the team’s eldest player at 32, averaged 15.0 points, while Courtney Williams was the top distributor with 5.5 assists along with 11.1 points per game.
Two Minnesota players were on non-US teams in the Olympics – Australia’s Alanna Smith and Canada’s Bridget Carleton. Smith is playing through a back injury.
Hello, everyone in Guardian-land. Nice to see you all again.
Tonight, we might witness the coronation at last of the New York Liberty, a star-studded and star-crossed team through their 28-year history, in which they’ve reached the Finals five times and come up empty.
Game 3 was an absolute scorcher. The Minnesota home crowd was rocking … until it wasn’t, as New York roared back and took a stunning win.
Wherever you are, thanks for joining us. This one should be a thriller.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a look back at the Liberty’s stunning Game 3 win on Wednesday night.
First appeared on www.theguardian.com