Brooklyn, NY—The New York Liberty have been very exciting and fun to watch this season with their up and down the hardwood play.
Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu struck with both scoring 20-plus points each to help the Libs to an 80-76 win over the Seattle Storm on Saturday at Barclays Center in front of an announced crowd of 6,789.
Stewart finished the game with 25 points, eight boards and three assists while Ionescu chipped in 20 points and eight assists.
The NY Liberty (13-4) have now won three games in a row.
New York won despite getting outrebounded 48-30 on the glass.
Ionescu kept the Storm at bay early by draining a pair of 3-pointers that crippled Seattle in the final frame.
“We had to buckle down and got stops when we needed to,” Ionescu said.
Seattle led 36-35 at the break before Stewart scored eight of her points in the third quarter to give the Liberty a 60-54 advantage heading to the final period.
The Storm lost their WNBA’s top scorer Jewell Loyd early in the fourth quarter to a sprained left ankle. With just over 7 minutes left to play in the contest. She had 14 points, but was 3-for-17 from the hardwood. Jewell returned to the bench a few minutes later, but didn’t re-enter the game.
The Libs led 70-68 before scoring eight straight, the last coming on Ionescu’s long three pointer which made it 78-68 with 3:02 left in the game.
Sami Whitcomb, who was making her return to New York after signing as a free agent in the offseason, scored the next eight points for Seattle to get the Storm within 78-76. She finished with 19 points but it wasn’t enough to take down the Liberty.
Ionescu was fouled with 17.3 seconds left and made both free throws to make it 80-76 for the final margin as Seattle didn’t score after that.
The loss was Seattle’s fifth straight, but the Storm (4-14) put forth a much better effort then its previous game when the team was blown out in Connecticut on Thursday.
“Playing together, that’s really the thing,” Stewart said. “You don’t want to force it. You want to let it come to you and find the openings and the right places to get going.
UP NEXT:
The Liberty will travel to Indiana to play the Fever on Wednesday July 12th for a 12:00 P.M start time.
