Liberty close out in 4th quarter to end Aces’ three-peat bid, book trip to WNBA Finals

It was difficult not to think of last year’s Game 4 of the WNBA Finals while watching Sunday’s Game 4 of the semifinal round.

Last year, Breanna Stewart came up short — 3-of-17 in that elimination game — and went into the offseason with the weight of disappointment on her shoulders.

And Sabrina Ionescu was limited while dealing with a hip injury sustained in the prior series.

On Sunday, the duo corrected those wrongs. They led the New York Liberty to a 76-62 victory over the Las Vegas Aces to eliminate the two-time defending champions.

The dreams of an Aces three-peat are over. Becky Hammon’s team was unable to become the second team in WNBA history to force a decisive Game 5 after being down 2-0 in a best-of-five series. Sandy Brondello’s 2018 Phoenix Mercury squad is the only team to do so.

And the most talked about piece of history remained: no team in WNBA history has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Stewart said after being asked what her thoughts were after winning the series, 3-1. She later emphasized that she’s experiencing: “the feeling of not being satisfied.”

“This was a tough series, an emotional series for a number of different reasons. But we’re going to the finals,” she said.

After scoring just nine points in a miserable Game 3, Ionescu contributed a game-high 22 points, seven rebounds and two assists. Stewart recorded 19 points, 14 rebounds and five assists. But three of her four blocks in the final period loomed large in her team’s push to a second straight WNBA Finals berth.

She got two on Kelsey Plum within a minute then Ionescu followed up with a trey at the 5:47 mark to cap seven unanswered points that put the Liberty up 11. Jonquel Jones‘ trey with under five minutes to go made it a 10-0 run. Leonie Fiebich‘s free throws with 3:38 left in regulation pushed the run to 12 unanswered and the lead to 16.

At that point victory was close, but Stewart’s final block over MVP winner A’ja Wilson at the 2:27 mark surely took the air out the arena. The defensive performance was part of a fourth quarter where the Aces went scoreless for four and a half minutes.

The conclusion of Sunday’s second half was completely different to Game 3. In Thursday’s loss, the Aces dropped 52 points in the final two quarters. The number shrunk to 24 in Game 4.

The Liberty’s scramble defense was the difference, per Stewart.

“We might have put ourselves in a 2-on-1 situations, but in Game 3, they got easy looks,” Stewart said. “In Game 3, they got walk-up threes. [In Game 4] we had higher pickup points and made sure that no matter what we want to get them a contested shot.”

The adjustment worked and kept hope alive for the franchise’s first WNBA title.

The one-sided finish felt awfully different than the start of the game.

Jackie Young continued where she left off in Game 3 with a trey to put the first points on the board. But the Liberty responded with a 10-0 run in the opening quarter. After Young’s made first shot, the Aces missed seven straight, including three missed Young layups — an issue Hammon complained about after Game 2.

The Libs led by as many as eight points in the first, getting a resurgence from Ionescu after her Game 3 dud. Ionescu surpassed her Game 3 point total within the first few minutes and eventually shot 4-of-4 (including three made treys) for 12 points in the opening period.

“Just continuing to read the game. Understanding what I didn’t do well last game and being able to adjust quickly,” she said after her bounce-back game. Ionescu noted higher screens helped getting her open Sunday.

“Thankfully my teammates found me,” she added.

But the Aces fought back and shortened the deficit to four going into the second.

Liberty went on another 8-0 run leading to the team’s first double-digit lead midway through the third.

The Aces still crawled back into the game — like two-time defending champions are supposed to do.

Fiebich gave her opponents a break after recording her third foul with 5:06 remaining in the second. Then Jones — like she did in Game 3 — got into foul trouble again after a questionable decision to hold Wilson on a paint entry feet away from the basket.

That forced two of Brondello’s best, lengthy defenders to the bench while the Aces fought for their lives.

Fiebich’s absence showed and so did Jones’. While being fronted by the much smaller Kayla Thornton, Wilson sealed, received an entry pass and drew a foul to get to the charity stripe. Wilson, who finished with a team-high 19 points and 10 rebounds, shortened the deficit to one, but Stewart’s tip made the score 41-38 going into halftime.

Now it was gut check time.

This was the same juncture the Liberty were within striking distance before getting demolished, 21-6, in the third quarter of Game 3. In that matchup, the Liberty looked lifeless and succumbed to the pressure inside Michelob Ultra Arena.

On Sunday, they looked shaky with three turnovers in the first few minutes (five overall in the quarter). And they were forced to weather the storm with Jones and Fiebich on the bench due to foul trouble. Sloppy possessions on both ends — jump balls, traveling violations and missed free throws — led neither team to go into the fourth with momentum. Brondello’s squad managed to narrowly lose the quarter, 13-12.

And luckily for the Libs, Young’s buzzer-beating half-court heave that shook the home arena and would’ve given her team a one-point advantage was wiped off after official review. And the Liberty entered the final period up, 53-51.

Then the Aces collapsed. They lost the final period, 23-11. There was no patented Wilson takeover. Overall, the Liberty limited them to 5-of-16 shooting in the final period.

The Houston Comets remain as the only WNBA franchise to achieve a three-peat.

There will be a new champion in 2024.

Game 1 of the WNBA Finals begins Thursday at Barclays Center.

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