Liberty Star Endured Injury During Finals

Sabrina Ionescu endured a tough injury during the final stages of the New York Liberty's WNBA title run.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

The road to a championship was a little more painful for New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu.

Per Alexa Philippou of ESPN, Ionescu played the final game-plus of the 2024 WNBA Finals with a high-grade tear in her ulnar collateral ligament, enduring the ailment during the penultimate showing of the five-game set. New York secured the first championship in franchise history with a five-game victory over the Minnesota Lynx earlier this month.

Per Johns Hopkins Medicine, the UCL is located on the inside of the elbow and consists of three bands. A tear can occur from "repeated stress from overhead movement" and are common in baseball pitchers. Such an injury could require Tommy John surgery but Philippou's report indicates no procedure is required "at the moment."

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

Ionescu will be re-evaluated in four weeks and is expected to make a full recovery. In recent appearances, such as the Liberty's ticker-tape parade in Manhattan last Thursday, Ionescu's right hand was seen adorned in varying degrees of bandaging.

New York secured its first championship in Ionescu's fourth full season. She averaged 16.9 points during the Liberty's 12-game playoff run and notably hit the game-winning shot at the end of Game 3 at Target Center.

After enduring the reported injury, Ionescu shot 1-of-19 in the Game 5 finale in Brooklyn but she nonetheless flirted with a triple-double at five points, eight assists, and seven rebounds in the 67-62 overtime victory. Her one successful tally from the field was a crucial three-pointer in the latter stages of regulation and she also played strong defense while Finals MVP Jonquel Jones and unexpected heroines like Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally handled the scoring load.

News of the injury caps off a busy year for Ionescu: the endeavor began with a three-point showdown with NBA star Stephen Curry during the Association's All-Star Weekend festivities and she also partook in the United States' women's national basketball team's latest gold medal run at the Paris Olympics.

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