The Guru’s WNBA Report: New York Edges Minnesota With a Second-Half Rally Into Overtime Capturing Game 5 Ending a 28-Season Pursuit for the Liberty’s First Title

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

NEW YORK – What had already become a dream come true season for those on the inside and those following the WNBA  likewise became realized for the New York Liberty late Sunday night when they completed a comeback here before a sellout crowd of 18,090 at Brooklyn’s  Barclays Center in the series’ second overtime of what had been a breathtaking finals to top the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 to  take the decisive Game 5.

Within a second of the completion of another tightrope competition as a 28-season quest matching the length of the WNBA’s total history dating to 1997 came to a glorious conclusion for the winners’ first championship, celebratory confetti poured down from the ceiling and then from various cannons surrounding the court as Frank Sinatra’s recording of New York, New York blared across the public address system.

The entire Liberty faithful joined in, including the attending celebrities such as Spike Lee, Wanda Sykes, and Aubrey Plaza, to name a few, with the playing of Queen’s We Are the Champions.

George Washington University grad Jonquel Jones, who had previously been part of near misses with the Connecticut Sun, collected 17 points to compensate the scoring struggles of Breanna Stewart, part of the USA’s record eighth straight Olympic gold medal in Paris, France last summer in August, and Sabrina Ionescu, another Olympian, to earn MVP honors.

“I could never dream of this,” Jones said. “You know how many times I’ve been denied. It was delayed. I am so happy to be here.”

If the Liberty had become one man’s trash under NBA Knicks and NHL Rangers owner James  Dolan several summers earlier exiling the team from downtown Madison Square Garden to the the dump of his G League operation an hour north in suburban White Plains, while trying to sell the women’s pro franchise, the outfit has transformed into the gold envisioned by NBA Nets owners Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai purchasing and bringing the franchise back to the city in their Brooklyn venue.

In terms of the neighborhood, it’s Brooklyn’s first title since the days of baseball’s now-L.A. Dodgers, who beat the New York Mets Sunday night to advance against the New York Yankees in the World Series.

In football, the Jets and Giants both got crushed, the former by Pittsburgh, the latter by the Eagles, but the buzz was clearly with the Liberty.

Subway station advertising hyped Game 5 and conversation in the streets could be heard earlier in the day speculating on the Liberty’s chances.

Meanwhile, the momentum generated last April when a star-studded rookie class highlighted by Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese arrived in the WNBA selected respectively by Indiana and Chicago carried from a record NCAA collegiate season in attendance and TV ratings through this summer in the women’s pro league and amped up throughout the playoffs with nightly sellouts in the first five-game finals since 2019.

After the Las Vegas Aces won their first title in 2022 earning “super team” accolades, the Liberty ownership took a “why not us” approach the following winter.

Already possessing the long-range shooting Ionescu out of Oregon as the overall top pick of the 2020 class, the Liberty brought in UConn grad Stewart, a native New Yorker in Syracuse from Seattle where she won two titles, MVP in both; and Jones, a season MVP recipient with the Sun whose guardian has been Temple women’s basketball coach Diane Richardson.

Continuing shopping the free agent market brought assist queen Courtney Vandersloot who had brought Chicago its first crown while Rutgers grad Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, the daughter of Cheyney all-American Yolanda Laney, had come to the team in 2021.

Australian Sandy Brondello, her country’s Olympic mentor who had coached the Phoenix Mercury to a WNBA title, was brought in to put it altogether.

The assembled roster ended a long finals drought last year bringing New York to its fifth in history but the Liberty still fell short, losing to the Aces’ first WNBA back-to-back since 2002, leaving a sour taste in Barclays where ‘Vegas finished taking the series 3-1.

This season New York became the top team and got revenge in the semifinals completing a 3-1 thumping of the Aces out West, but it wasn’t going to be downhill the rest of the way playing Minnesota, the No. 2 seed, who were seeking to snap a tie with Seattle and the former Houston Comets chasing a fifth championship under La Salle grad Cheryl  Reeve, who also coached the Olympic squad last summer.

Every game went to the wire, Minnesota stealing Game 1 in overtime after Stewart missed a free throw at the finish that would have given the win to New York.

The Liberty won the second and then became the comeback winners on Ionescu’s three-pointer in the closing seconds in Minneapolis to take the lead for the first time in their finals history.

Not so fast said the Lynx in a cliff-hanger in Game 4 winning on Bridget Collier’s two free-throws with two seconds left in regulation to temporarily stay alive.

But being the top seed earned the Liberty the right to host the deciding Game 5 and so it was back to Brooklyn where New York was ready to party, the titanic struggle setting ratings records in the millions.

However, the Lynx did the dancing Sunday night in the first half, Stewart and Ionescu shooting blanks while Napheesa Collier, another UConn talent who had dominated the overall playoffs, scored 14 points as Minnesota built a 12-point lead before the Liberty cut it to seven at the break.

Brondello went to a tall lineup at the outset of the third quarter, using a combination for the first time that fueled another Liberty rally.

 Finally scoring late in regulation, Ionescu’s three swung the tide to New York, but Minnesota bounced back and was up two when Stewart, who had missed two free throws shortly before, went to the line connecting both, Reeve later charging foul on the foul, as the affair went into overtime.

Rookie Leonie Fiebich out of Germany gave New York the lead and as the Lynx did in the Game 1, the Liberty gained the upper hand.

“Whoever scores in overtime first usually wins,” Brondello smiled.

Championships have been part of Stewart’s basketball DNA dating back to four straight, all with MVP honors, in the NCAA and on to Seattle as a pro and with USA as an Olympian but this one was personal, she said Sunday night between swigs of champagne at the podium.

“I’ve been manifesting this moment for a while,” Stewart said. “There’s no feeling like it.

“Credit to Minnesota, they gave us a tough series. The fans have been amazing everywhere we’ve gone. To bring a championship to New York, first ever in franchise history, it’s an incredible feeling. I can’t wait to celebrate with the city. It’s going to be bonkers.”

Fiebich scored 13 as did Stewart, who was 4-15 from the field but also grabbed 15 rebounds.

“She did so many other things to help us win,” Brondello said.

Ionescu had five points, shooting 1-19 on the night and 1-10 from outside, but her former Oregon teammate Nyara Sabally had 13 off the bench.’

Minnesota’s Collier, though slowed down in the second half, scored 22, while Kayla McBride, a Notre Dame former star, added 22.

Collier said the Liberty got tougher defensively in the second half.

Reeve, a Big 5 Hall of Famer who will be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame Nov. 7, during her complaints on the officiating at the end claiming the title was stolen, also noting the Lynx loss to Los Angeles on a WNBA-admitted missed travel call in 2016, said, “Congratulations to the Liberty on their first championship. It took them 28 years, congrats to them. We were that close to our fifth, it just didn’t happen.”

With TV ratings running a bit behind the actual events, the Game 4 numbers are expected later Monday followed soon thereafter by the numbers from Sunday night.

Next month comes the telecast airing the draft lottery order among Los Angeles, Dallas, Washington, and Chicago, of which all but Washington recently fired their coaches, as did Atlanta, the eighth seed in this year’s playoffs.

In December comes the expansion draft for the new Golden State Valkyries, which comes aboard next summer and will draft fifth each round of the regular picks next April.

Toronto and Portland start play in 2026 with one more expected by 2028.

Next season, the finals will increase to a best-of-seven like other major pro sports teams.

So all that said, the WNBA season completed goes into the books just two weeks away from the start of the new 2024-05 collegiate season that promises to top the one that signed off last spring.