NBA
The Liberty said it would take a 40-minute effort to get past the Mystics.
It takes 45.
In a back-and-forth game, the Liberty made the final count in a 90-85 overtime victory.
The chippy, frenetic first-round Game 2 win clinched the series 2-0 in front of a sellout crowd of 9,256 at the Barclays Center.
It marked the Liberty’s first playoff series win since 2017, setting up a semifinal date against the winner of Connecticut-Minnesota on Wednesday.
But with this star-studded roster and the second-best record in the WNBA, they have their sights set higher.
“It means a lot,” said Breanna Stewart, who had a team-high 27 points and nine rebounds. “I don’t know if we ever thought about taking this team back to a place Liberty hasn’t been in years, but it’s the first time we’ve done it as a group.
“There were highs and lows, and we knew it was going to be emotional. Obviously, DC was going to come out swinging and come out with whatever they had, and we stayed the course. Regardless, we never stopped playing until the final buzzer, and we won.
Stewart bounced back from a subpar 3 on 16 in the opener with a stellar night.
And with Natasha Cloud harassing Liberty guards Sabrina Ionescu and Courtney Vandersloot, coach Sandy Brondello ran the offense through Stewart late, and the forward — who sat just 56 seconds all night — had game-high six points at 14-9 OT.
“The big moment — and I’m kicking myself at the end for not doing it — but it just makes Stewie the point guard,” Brondello said. “It was a big moment, because the guards, they just made Slootie and Sabrina, tough night. So we put the ball back in Stewie’s hands, and we made better decisions. And that offensive rebound by JJ.
That was center Jonquel Jones — also a former MVP — who grabbed Ionescu’s missed free throw with 12.6 seconds left, drew a foul and hit two foul shots to force overtime. Jones added 19 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks to dominate the paint, and held Elena Delle Donne to 11 points on 4 of 16 shooting.
The Liberty had 52 points in the paint – and on a night they hit just 4 of 23 from deep, they needed every one of them.
Washington tried to come out physical, but in the end it was the Liberty who got the two biggest rebounds of the series.
Trailing 76-74 with 27.3 seconds left in regulation on free throws by Cloud (career-high 33 points), Stewart made up for his own miss.
It made free throws with 12.6 seconds left by Ionescu, who cranked the first then intentionally missed the second to set up Jones’ heroics.
When Cloud threw a pass for Brittney Sykes, it essentially sent the game into overtime.
“I knew we were going to overtime. And that’s exactly what it is,” Stewart said. “JJ and I looked at each other: We wanted to cross and cause confusion. Sab missed the free throw, and he got it. There was a foul called and I knew he was going to knock two down. And that’s exactly it. We knew, ‘OK, we didn’t get it done in 40 minutes, but in five minutes, we got it done.’ “
Cloud’s 3 put Washington up 79-78 in overtime, but the Liberty scored the next six – Betnijah Laney hit a fade, then Vandersloot added a layup and a jumper with 2:29 to play.
Ariel Atkins’ miss from the 3 with 8.8 seconds left sealed it, and Stewart’s free throws four seconds later at the other end made it official.
“I really thought that from the beginning of our whole journey, I felt like this team was special and could do a lot of special things,” Jones said.
“I’m very much like a step-by-step type of person. I’m just taking one game at a time, one series at a time obviously, and getting ready for our next matchup. But I understand that if we play the way we have to play and do what we have to do that the chances of us being successful are very high.
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