Balanced attack helps Liberty hold off Seattle and improve to 28-6

The records are impressive for the Liberty when it comes to their home work as well as their road work.

But homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs is what they want, and it’s right there for them to try to grab.

The WNBA-leading Liberty beat Seattle, 77-70, Thursday night at Barclays Center, moving their bottom line up to 28-6 and their magic number down to four to clinch the top seed.

“We want to try our best to be able to get the homecourt advantage,” Jonquel Jones said. “We know we can do it. It’s a goal of ours.”

The Liberty lead by 3 1⁄2 games over Connecticut and Minnesota. Those teams have seven games remaining.

The Liberty have six games left. They clinched at least a top-four seed with this win. They’re 15-2 at home. They’re 13-4 on the road.

When they went to the Finals last year, they owned the second seed and had to play at top-seeded Las Vegas for the first two games. They dropped both and lost the series in four games.

“Being on our home court, which we feel like we play great basketball here, our home crowd is awesome,” coach Sandy Brondello said. “But having it throughout the playoffs . . . I think that helps us. We’re home. We’re in our own beds. We’re in our routines. So we would like that.”

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton returned to the starting lineup in her fourth game back after knee surgery and scored 18 points. Sabrina Ionescu added 17 points and eight assists.

Jones had 15 points, eight rebounds and five blocks. And Breanna Stewart delivered 10 of her 14 points in the final quarter.

“It’s about making sure that we’re peaking and playing our best ball when it matters,” Brondello said about the next six.

Seattle (20-14), which was paced by Skylar Diggins-Smith’s 21 points, led 55-51 in the third.

Then Laney-Hamilton scored seven and Stewart had five in a 17-2 run that carried into the fourth and put the Liberty ahead 68-57.

The Storm trimmed that to 68-63, but Stewart hit two short jumpers, and the margin was nine.

The Liberty had taken a 33-24 lead in the second quarter, but Seattle sliced it to 40-36 by halftime, and Stewart had one point at that point.

“At the end of the day, you can’t stop a player of that magnitude,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. “You have to try to contain, try to limit what she does.”