Liberty Not Satisfied With Thrilling Victory

The New York Liberty earned a season sweep of the defending champion Las Vegas Aces but it hardly came easy.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

BROOKLYN-The New York Liberty earned a thrilling victory over one of their most renowned adversaries and secured a season sweep over the defending WNBA champions.

It's going to a lot more than that to keep them satisfied.

New York treated 15,393 at Barclays Center to a thrilling WNBA Finals rematch that afforded them both a 75-71 victory over the Las Vegas Aces and a sweep of the season series against the defending champions, who were missing presumed 2024 MVP A'ja Wilson.

That bodes well for Brooklyn if recent WNBA history offers a clue of what's to come this postseason: the Liberty (29-6) became the first team to sweep a defending Association champion since since Courtney Vandersloot's Chicago Sky in 2021 ... a group that later won its first title in franchise history.

But while visitors to Atlantic Avenue might've gotten their ticket money's worth, the Liberty weren't trying to create drama.

"Not happy," head coach Sandy Brondello said in the aftermath. "Some parts were a good part of our game, but the rest of it wasn't."

Only adding to the somber proceedings was the loss of two-way star Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who left during the fourth quarter due to an apparent right knee injury sustained on an offensive possession.

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

New York led by as much as 20 in the second half of Sunday's game but could only watch as Wilson's successors ate away at the advantage, to the point where Las Vegas took a brief lead while Laney-Hamilton was in the locker room. The Liberty recovered well enough to hold Las Vegas scoreless over the final 1:54 after that while Sabrina Ionescu hit a key double to provide the winning margin. Ionescu scored half of her 14 points in the final period after hitting three of her first 14 tries.

Losing the big lead to the Wilson-less Aces would've been bad enough but things felt a little too similar to the ghosts of Brooklyn past: the Aces previously clinched last year's championship on Brooklyn hardwood despite missing starters Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes.

"We're happy that we're going away with the win, but we were up 20 at one point," leading scorer Breanna Stewart said. "We have to continue to build, not relax at any point when you're on the court. They're going to come out no matter who's on the court, whether Aja's playing or not, they're fighting to win."

"We have to play with a little bit more intention, that we have to take advantage of all of our opportunities offensively and then defensively stay locked in regardless of what's happening on the offensive side," Jonquel Jones added. "But the good thing about it is that it isn't a playoff game yet and we won the game and we have the opportunity to go out there and get better and refocus. Games like this, you can learn a lot from. We're in the position where we can really fix some things before the playoffs start."

New York is in relatively good standing when it comes to its playoff fate: with Sunday's win, their unofficial magic number to secure homecourt throughout the WNBA playoffs is three, as they're three games up on the second-place Minnesota Lynx. The Liberty welcome in Minnesota next Sunday afternoon after a duo in Dallas that tips off on Tuesday night (8 p.m. ET, CBSSN).

Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

But the New Yorkers have made it clear that they'd like to be firing on all cylinders once the bracket is formed. Like Jones before her, Ionescu embraced the relative horror and opted to treat it as a gift.

"I 'm excited to see how we respond to this. We seem to respond well after games like this," Ionescu said of the Liberty, which has not lost consecutive games since May. "That locker room wasn't all happy and giddy when we got in there ... Obviously it wasn't a pretty win, but you got to be able to win ugly, especially in this league. Not everything's going to look great. We hold ourselves to a really high standard, which is why the morale might be a little bit low with a win like this."

"I think that that goes to show where this team's at," Ionescu continued. "We're not just satisfied with a win and I think that just goes to show how we demand greatness of ourselves every time we step out there. Obviously, that wasn't Liberty basketball and our best basketball. Being able to hold yourself to that standard is a blessing, but also understanding it's a win."

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