Jonquel Jones helps drive Liberty over Minnesota
Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello congratulates forward Jonquel Jones as she comes out of the game with under a minute left against the Minnesota Lynx in a WNBA game at Barclays Center on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Minnesota Lynx have been just about the only team in the WNBA to provide problems for the Liberty this season. No individual player better embodies this than Jonquel Jones, who was held to seven total points over their first two matchups of the season.
On Tuesday night, Jones played like somebody who was well aware of her struggles against the Lynx this season. And like a player tired of hearing about it. Jones had 21 points and 12 rebounds in a 76-67 victory for the Liberty over the Lynx at the Barclays Center.
The Liberty outscored Minnesota 18-8 in the fourth quarter and closed the final 6:37 on a 15-2 run.
“It felt good, but not really the scoring. Just to be able to win the game and the way we did it in terms of just being able to get stops and being locked in the fourth [quarter],” Jones said. “But it definitely feels good to score against a team that’s kind of had my number in the first two matchups.”
The Liberty dropped their first two games of the season to the Lynx, including a 94-89 loss in the Commissioner’s Cup championship on June 25. Jones was held to three points while missing all three of her field-goal attempts in that contest. The 6-6 forward said she took Tuesday’s game as a more personal challenge after her previous poor performances against Minnesota, and she wasn’t alone there.
“They are a great team and they were 2-0 against us so this was personal,” Sabrina Ionescu said. “We’re playing at home, this was a bigger game than it really was in terms of it being a regular-season game and we had to understand that. We had to come out and play our best basketball. And no matter how I felt, I was going to leave everything out on the court.”
Ionescu was questionable with an illness but felt healthy enough to play after going through pregame warmups. She finished with 17 points, five rebounds and five assists.
The Liberty improved their WNBA-leading record to 17-3 this season. The Lynx, who still have the third-best record in the WNBA, fall to 14-5.
Coach Sandy Brondello gave credit to the Liberty’s fourth-quarter defense for the victory.
“Defense is about hard work,” Brondello said. “It’s [whether] you are willing to do it or not and we’re willing to do it and we talked about that. We can go to another level and I think we’ve shown that a lot in the fourth quarter this year. We can go to another level defensively.”
The Liberty needed a strong performance from Jones with leading scorer Breanna Stewart off to a dismal 1-for-13 shooting start on Tuesday and Ionescu less than 100%. Stewart, the team’s leading scorer, finished by making 4 of her final 7 shots and totaled 17 points with 17 rebounds.
Jones, who was selected to play in the WNBA All-Star Game when rosters were released Tuesday night, also had timely baskets late in the contest, including scoring off an offensive rebound with 3:57 to give the Liberty a 69-65 lead. She also knocked down a three-pointer with 8:59 left in the fourth quarter to give the Liberty a 61-59 advantage for their first lead of the second half.
“This is a team that kind of had our number,” Jones said, “and we wanted to be able to get out there and show what we can really do when we play our style of basketball.”
Ionescu player of month
Ionescu was named the Eastern Conference player of the month for June on Tuesday after averaging 19.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 7.4 assists over 11 games. She led the WNBA in assists in June and shot 43.2% from the field, including 37.4% on three-pointers. New York went 10-1 in June for its highest win percentage (.909) in any month in franchise history when it played at least five games.