A Breanna Stewart-A'ja Wilson rivalry would do wonders for WNBA
Liberty star Breanna Stewart and Aces star A'ja Wilson. Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer; AP/John Locher
LAS VEGAS — It’s time for the MVPs to show what they can do.
Game 1 of the WNBA Finals was all about the guards, a matchup that didn’t work out terribly well for the Liberty as they dropped the series opener, 99-82, to the Aces. On Wednesday, there was nothing fans of both teams would like to see more in Game 2 than a tough battle between A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart.
A WNBA Finals featuring the league’s two most dominant players on the league’s most dominant teams had been widely seen as something with the potential to push the league to the next level, much like the rivalry between the Celtics’ Larry Bird and the Lakers’ Magic Johnson did for the NBA in the 1980s.
The players have defined excellence in the sport for the past decade, dating to when Stewart won four college championships at Connecticut and Wilson helped South Carolina win the national title in 2017.
They have combined to win four of the last six WNBA MVP awards, with Stewart having edged Wilson and Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas for the top honor this year. Wilson’s career also includes winning two Defensive Player of the Year awards while Stewart just broke the league’s single-season scoring record.
“This really could become one of those great rivalries,” ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo said when asked about the Bird-Magic comparison before Game 1.
“These are two young players in the league and have been since they came into the league. They’ve been an incredible foil for their fan bases.”
Wilson certainly seemed fired up to go against Stewart and the Liberty, especially after it was announced two weeks ago that Stewart had won the MVP.
“It hurt like hell,” said Wilson, who won the MVP in 2020 and 2022. “It really did. But it’s all a part of the game.”
While both players made an impact in Game 1, neither gave a marquee performance.
Stewart scored a team-high 21 points on 8-for-19 shooting while grabbing nine rebounds, but she only had six free-throw attempts. Wilson finished with 19 points, eight rebounds and three blocks. “We just couldn’t get any second-chance points, second opportunities,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “They just built a wall.”
Entering a championship series down a game is an unfamiliar experience for Stewart, who joined the Liberty as a free agent this summer. Stewart won championships with Seattle in 2018 and 2020, and the Storm did not lose a single game in either of those finals.
From an offensive standpoint, it has not been a great postseason for Stewart. Her 20 points per game through seven games is her lowest postseason total since her rookie season in 2016. Heading into Game 2, she was shooting a career-low 21.2% from three-point range in the playoffs.
Still, in the first two series, Stewart found a way to impact games even when opposing defenses were throwing everything they had at her. At the conclusion of the semifinals, she had 18 blocks, including five blocks in the Game 2 win over Connecticut.
Stewart has the ability and talent to set the tone of a game and you can bet there’s nothing that the Liberty would have liked more than to come out in Game 2 with the kind of showing that proves they put their Game 1 loss behind them.
In the team’s practice Tuesday, Stewart sounded like a player who was ready to accept the bounce-back challenge. The Liberty have not lost two games in a row the entire season or postseason.
“The playoffs are a roller- coaster,” she said. “There’s a lot of highs and lows and it’s about who can maintain their emotions the best. Punches are going to be thrown at you and you have to throw punches back. Losing Game 1 sucked and we’re not happy about it. But it’s all about how you are going to respond for Game 2.
“We can’t sulk and get down in the moment. The attitude is let’s get up and do better and show what we can do.”
Liberty fans would like nothing more.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
