Breanna Stewart has 24 points and 11 rebounds, but Liberty fall to Lynx in Commissioner's Cup final

The stakes were not a win or loss to add into the WNBA standings. This game Tuesday night at UBS Arena didn’t count toward that.

But there were big things that the Liberty and Minnesota Lynx coveted, namely a larger chunk of a $500,000 prize pool and the right to be called champions.

The Liberty were the defending Commissioner’s Cup champs. They didn’t repeat the feat.

The Lynx made a statement. The Liberty made 21 turnovers leading to 27 points, and they fell, 94-89, in the championship game.

“Obviously, 21 turnovers is never going to win the game,” Breanna Stewart said.

They couldn’t contain Bridget Carleton, who hit six threes and scored 23, and Commissioner’s Cup MVP Napheesa Collier, who contributed 21 points and six rebounds.

And while Stewart delivered 24 points and 11 rebounds and Sabrina Ionescu contributed 23 points and 10 rebounds and Kayla Thornton scored 17, the Lynx held Jonquel Jones, the 2023 Commissioner's Cup MVP, to a season-low three points.

Her previous season low? May 25. The Lynx held Jones to four in their 84-67 victory in Minneapolis.

“Another great learning experience because JJ has been playing great,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “They really took her out of the game, making it hard for her to catch the ball.”

The Lynx have been the league’s biggest surprise, rolling into this game at 13-3, tied with Connecticut for the second-best mark in the league behind the Liberty’s 15-3 start.

“You’ve got to talk about us now,” Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said at her meet-the-media session. “You have no choice. … We just beat a superteam. Do you know how hard that is to do?”

Her players will each receive up to $30,000 each from the prize pool. The Liberty players will each get up to $10,000. Collier will get a $5,000 bonus for being the MVP. The players on both sides will also receive a $5,000 bonus in cryptocurrency from Coinbase.

“At the end of the day, we want to win anything that we’re in,” Collier said. “So it’s means a lot because it’s a great team we just beat. It’s a game that we won. And we won some money. So it’s like a trifecta.”

The Liberty got Courtney Vandersloot back after she missed eight games. The point guard was dealing with her mother’s illness and then death two weekends ago. She had four points and four assists off the bench.

They also got Betnijah Laney-Hamilton back after she missed three games with a knee issue. The guard/forward scored 13, but Brondello said she was “rusty.”

The Lynx opened up a 70-60 advantage in the first minute of the fourth.

Stewart then went on a 9-0 run. Suddenly, it was 70-69 with 6:56 left.

But the Liberty never caught up.

Carleton scored eight and Collier added five to fuel Minnesota’s response — an 18-8 run.

After Laney-Hamilton made a free throw, Carleton nailed a three from the right corner, and it was 88-77.

The Liberty kept pushing. Laney-Hamilton sank a three with 35.5 seconds left, and the deficit was down to 88-84. But Kayla McBride canned two free throws at 24.1 to make it a six-point game. The closest it got from there was 92-89 with 1.8 remaining.

“I think just executed better than us,” Stewart said.

Late in the first half, the Liberty owned a 47-37 advantage. But the lead was down to 50-47 at halftime.

Then they scored just 10 in the third and fell behind 66-60.

“Obviously, we were trying to get JJ going,” Ionescu said. “I think we kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that.”