Liberty need Breanna Stewart to be at her best if they are to claim their first WNBA championship
Liberty forward Breanna Stewart drives to the basket past Minnesota Lynx forward Bridget Carleton (6) during the first half of Game 4 of a WNBA basketball final playoff series, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Minneapolis. Credit: AP/Abbie Parr
Breanna Stewart has pretty much done it all.
She’s won four NCAA titles, three Olympic gold medals, two WNBA MVP awards and two WNBA championships.
In a WNBA Finals featuring multiple superstars, Stewart is by far the most accomplished player on the court. Yet when the Liberty host the Lynx on Sunday in the first winner-take-all Finals game since 2019, none of this will matter.
This is what does matter: If the Liberty are going to win the first WNBA title in their 28-year history, Stewart needs to be the best player, not just the most decorated.
It’s on her. Unfair as it is to single out a single player, this is the reason she was brought to New York. Her addition two years ago turned the Liberty into a superteam. She’s the one that gave them legitimate championship aspirations.
If the Liberty are going to avoid a re-do of last year’s humiliation — if they are going to avoid watching their opponent celebrate being crowned champion on their home court — Stewart must bounce back from her shockingly poor 11-point performance in Game 4 and have a monster game Sunday.
Considering Stewart’s poor night in Game 4, it’s a minor miracle that the Liberty were in position to win until the very end, when the Lynx made two free throws with two seconds remaining for an 82-80 win.
From the very start, when Stewart’s three-pointer on the first possession of the game spun around the rim and fell out, nothing seemed to go right. She missed her first eight shots. While much of her trouble had to do with the defensive prowess of Napheesa Collier, a former Connecticut teammate who recently was voted the WNBA’s defensive player of the year, Stewart also missed some wide-open three-pointers and seemingly easy layups.
Stewart shot 5-for-21 overall, missing all four of her three-point attempts. In the fourth quarter — when her team needed her most — she was 1-for-8, including four misses on potential go-ahead buckets.
“I think that I was going a little bit too fast,” Stewart said when asked about her shooting struggles. “I just needed to slow down. They are sending multiple people when I’m slipping on a screen, stuff like that. A little bit better awareness on my part. But quick turnaround and be ready for Sunday.”
Collier is determined to do everything she can to continue to frustrate Stewart.
“I think we’re both great players,” Collier said after Game 4. “She’s a great player. One of the best in the world. My goal is to make it hard for her every time.”
Here’s the good news about Stewart’s ability to be reset for Sunday: Some of her best offensive performances have followed very poor games.
After shooting 7-for-17 in a Game 3 loss to the Aces in the semifinals, Stewart closed out the series with a 19-point, 14-rebound, five-assist, four-block performance in Game 4. Then, after missing a free throw at the end of regulation and a layup at the end of overtime in the Lynx’s Game 1 win, Stewart led her team to a Game 2 victory with 21 points, nine rebounds, five assists and a WNBA Finals-record seven steals.
The Liberty have talked all season about the pain of having to watch the Aces celebrate winning a championship at Barclays Center last year. The Liberty’s record dropped to 0-5 in the WNBA Finals when the Aces won Game 4 by a point.
No one wants to avoid a repeat performance Sunday more than Stewart, who in that loss to the Aces scored only 10 points, shot 3-for-17 and failed to get off the potential game-winner at the end. She surely doesn’t want to hear all next year about how the Liberty were good enough to win 80% of their games in the regular season in 2024 but couldn’t win when it mattered most.
Stewart, for what it’s worth, sounds ready to change the narrative and finally win a title for Liberty fans.
“We are going back to New York,” she said. “And we’re going to get it done.”
It’s on her.
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.