Liberty overcome Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu shooting struggles to win WNBA Finals vs. Lynx

It took nearly 11 minutes for Breanna Stewart to score her first points in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals.

Sabrina Ionescu didn’t score hers until after halftime.

And while things never got much better for their two biggest stars, the Liberty found a way to scratch, claw and escape with a 67-62 victory in overtime against the Minnesota Lynx in the winner-take-all game at Barclays Center on Sunday night, clinching the long-awaited first championship in franchise history.

Stewart finished with 13 points on 4-of-15 shooting and 15 rebounds.

Ionescu managed only five points in a 1-of-19 effort, which included going 1-of-10 from 3-point range.

It was nearly too much to overcome, but smothering team defense, a postseason-best 13-point performance by Nyara Sabally off the bench and a 3-pointer by Leonie Fiebich to begin overtime proved to be just enough.

It was the second game in a row in which the duo struggled with a chance to close out the Lynx, as Stewart shot 5-of-21 for 11 points in the Liberty’s loss in Game 4, while Ionescu went 5-of-15 for 10 points.

Both expressed confidence going into Game 5, but both went scoreless in Sunday’s first quarter, after which the Liberty trailed, 19-10.

Stewart’s first points came on a 13-foot floater at the 9:02 mark of the second quarter, and she went into halftime with five points on 2-of-9 shooting.

Ionescu did not score until there was 5:23 left in the third quarter, when she drew a shooting foul against McBride and made both free throws.

Typically among the WNBA’s deadliest shooters, Ionescu missed her first 3-point off the backboard and airballed her third. She repeatedly missed tough looks on driving lay-up attempts as well, often by a wide margin.

Stewart and Ionescu did team up for a couple of crucial plays in crunch time. Stewart assisted on Ionescu’s lone basket — a 28-foot 3-pointer — with 3:10 left in the fourth quarter to put the Liberty up, 56-52.

On the Liberty’s next possession, Ionescu missed another 3-pointer, but Stewart tipped the ball back to her, and Ionescu found a cutting Stewart for a lay-up to go up 58-54.

But the Lynx responded with a 6-0 run, and Stewart missed a pair of free throws with 38 seconds remaining that would have tied the game. After the second miss, Fiebich corralled an offensive rebound and found Ionescu for an open 3-point attempt, but she missed it.

Ionescu missed another 3-point try on the next possession, but with 5.2 seconds remaining, Stewart drew a foul on Alanna Smith, and she made both free throws that time to tie the game, 60-60, and force overtime.

Conversely, the Lynx’s do-it-all superstar, Napheesa Collier, scored a game-high 22 points, while teammate Kayla McBride added 21. Collier, the WNBA’s Defensive Player of the Year and the MVP runner-up, added seven rebounds but fouled out during overtime.

Jonquel Jones won Finals MVP for the Liberty after scoring a team-high 17 points Sunday. The 6-6 standout averaged 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in the Finals.

Game 5 concluded an uneven Finals for Stewart and Ionescu, who both turned in big-time highlights but delivered their share of duds as well.

In the Liberty’s 95-93 loss in overtime in Game 1 — during which they tied a dubious Finals record by blowing an 18-point lead — Stewart missed a would-be-game-winning free throw with less than a second remaining in regulation, then missed a would-be-game-tying lay-up as time expired in OT.

Stewart scored 18 points on 6-for-21 shooting in Game 1, while Ionescu scored 19 points on 8-for-26 shooting.

They bounced back in their 80-66 win in Game 3, when Stewart led the Liberty with 21 points and a Finals-record seven steals, while Ionescu scored 12 of her 15 points in the first quarter before dishing a clutch assist in crunch time.

In Game 3’s 80-77 victory, Stewart exploded for 30 points and 11 rebounds, while Ionescu delivered an instant-classic shot when she drained a 28-foot game-winner.

That put the Liberty up 2-1 in the best-of-five series, but the Lynx bounced back with an 82-80 win in Game 4. Minnesota’s final two points came on Bridget Carleton’s free throws with two seconds remaining after Ionescu fouled her while boxing out.

“I’ve never played in a Game 4 closeout game, so that was kind of a new environment and feel for me,” Ionescu said during Sunday’s morning shootaround before Game 5.

“I’ve never played in a Game 5, so kind of excited to continue to grow. I think there’s something to say about going through it for the first time. The last game, I was probably a little bit more nervous than usual.”

Stewart missed her first eight shots in Game 4, then missed all five of her attempts during a scoreless fourth quarter.

“We look back at Game 4, and it was like we wanted it so badly that sometimes it was just, like, frantic,” Stewart said at Sunday’s shootaround. “A little bit of [getting] outside of ourselves.”

The star-powered Liberty sought redemption after losing in last year’s Finals in four games to the Las Vegas Aces.

Ionescu averaged 9.8 points per game and made only 31.6% of her field-goal attempts in the 2023 Finals, which marked her first appearance in the championship round.

Those Finals also ended on a low note for Stewart, a two-time champion with the Seattle Storm, who scored only 10 points on 3-of-17 shooting in 2023’s Game 4.

This year, Stewart averaged 18.6 points per game on 32.6% shooting in the Finals, while Ionescu averaged 12.4 points per game on 29.6%.

And while those numbers paled in comparison to their typical stats, Stewart and Ionescu are 2024 WNBA champions nonetheless.