Scarred Liberty look to dethrone Aces in WNBA semifinals

BREANNA STEWART JUMPED to grab the inbounds pass from Sabrina Ionescu. There were 8.8 seconds left in Game 4 of the 2023 WNBA Finals, and the New York Liberty trailed the Las Vegas Aces by one. Even worse, they were one loss from elimination.

Stewart drove toward the block and spun in the lane as Aces guard Jackie Young stepped forward to double-team her. The reigning MVP kicked the ball out to the wing, her last touch of the 2023 season.

After one more pass, the ball wound up in Courtney Vandersloot's hands on the baseline. With 1.7 seconds left, she launched the ball toward the basket. It sailed over the rim. Jonquel Jones grabbed it for a put-back, but the red light gleamed on the backboard and the clock read 0.0. The scoreboard sealed it: Aces 70, Liberty 69. The game was over. The season was over. The championship quest was over.

The Liberty had led by nine at halftime. They were playing a shorthanded team that didn't have point guard Chelsea Gray, center Kiah Stokes or legend Candace Parker. They were playing on their home court.

The Aces formed a dogpile near the Liberty logo.

"We have a scar as a team," Vandersloot says 11 months later. "We are working through that."

A scar. A physical reminder of trauma, of pain. The Liberty will confront that reminder starting Sunday in a semifinal matchup with the team that inflicted it. New York has the best record in the league this season. The Liberty have beaten the Aces all three times they've played. But questions remain. Will the scar motivate them or haunt them? Have the Liberty healed enough to bring home the first championship in franchise history?

THE BALL HADN'T cleared the net's nylon when Ionescu hung her head and walked toward the Liberty bench. The ball was still bouncing near the baseline when Jones turned her eyes away from the celebration and toward her downcast teammates. Stewart leaned over, her hands on her knees, as the Las Vegas party gained steam.

Minutes later, Stewart, the season's MVP, and Vandersloot, the game's high scorer, stared at the stat sheets as though they contained the secret to fixing the New York City subway system. They were asked how they would describe their level of disappointment.

"High," Stewart said, and silence followed.

"Very high," Vandersloot said.

All season, buzz surrounded the arrival of Stewart, Vandersloot and Jones in New York. Stewart was a two-time WNBA champion in Seattle, a former MVP and recognized as one of the best players in the world. Vandersloot ranked in the top three for career assists in the WNBA and won a championship in Chicago. Jones, a former MVP with Connecticut, led the league in rebounds per game in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The All-Stars had conspired to join Ionescu, the No. 1 draft pick in 2020, in the biggest market in the league, in the basketball mecca of the world.

They formed a superteam, and the expectations were simple: They would deliver a basketball championship to New York for the first time since 1973. They dared to speak of a dynasty.

BLUE SKY AND SUN hovered over New York City on the morning of Oct. 19, 2023. The Liberty saw only red.

"That's not something that you wake up the next day and you're just happy to be there," Ionescu says. "It was a long, dark couple weeks."

Eventually, she returned to the gym. The sound of the ball dropping through the net and her shoes squeaking across the floor provided some relief from the pain. Each dribble and each made shot were like stitches closing the wound of the previous season.

"I had six months of an offseason to get better," Ionescu says. "And make sure that I can be the best that I can and not let that happen again."

Training camp opened in late April. But even with the start of a new season, the scars still stung.

"It hurt the way we finished last season, and kind of just remembering that feeling going forward," says Stewart, who went 3-for-17 in the final loss. "But at the same time knowing that as we started this season we're turning over a new leaf."

Coach Sandy Brondello brought the team together at training camp to revisit the loss one more time.

"But then we moved forward to the present," she says. "And focused on how we wanted to play in 2024."

Games against the Aces accounted for just 7.5% of the Liberty's 40-game regular-season schedule, but they carried far more weight.

"I feel like we had a legitimate chance and we let it get away from us. It was like, 'No one to blame but ourselves,'" Vandersloot says of the Game 4 loss. "That's hard to deal with. And that's something that you remember."

The Liberty opened the 2024 season with a four-game winning streak. By the time they faced Las Vegas for the first time, in a June clash at Michelob Ultra Arena, they were 11-2.

Vegas led by six with 6:33 left in the third quarter. But then Kelsey Plum missed. A'ja Wilson missed. Young missed. For New York, Jones scored. Ionescu scored. Stewart scored. The Liberty rolled to a 14-0 run and led by seven at the end of the third. They won the first of three regular-season matchups 90-82.

Jones scored a career-high 34 points. Stewart and Ionescu both had double-doubles.

"We went to the championship and we lost," Jones says. "There's always going to be a little bit of a residual effect from that."

The second game, on Aug. 17, was more of the same. Despite six players across the two teams mingling on Team USA for the Olympics, the lines were redrawn for this match. And once again, the Liberty came out on top. Ionescu and Stewart combined for 41 points in the 79-67 road win.

It was the home matchup in September that began to look like it could be a repeat of the Finals loss. The Liberty built a 20-point lead over the Aces -- playing without a hobbled Wilson -- with 2:21 left in the third quarter. But then Vandersloot missed. Stewart missed. Ionescu missed. Jones missed. The Liberty missed 10 consecutive shots while the Aces executed a 15-0 run. As time ticked away in the fourth quarter, Ionescu delivered.

Trailing by one with 44 seconds left, Ionescu spun free of Sydney Colson. She elevated and banked a short jumper to give the Liberty a lead they didn't relinquish.

The Liberty won 75-71, but they nearly didn't. The blown lead. The near loss on their home court to the team that celebrated a championship near their logo the previous season. It all hung thick in the air. The prospect of that old wound reopening, of the stitching underneath the scar unraveling.

"When you have experiences, you can revert back to 'em," Brondello says. "It's a memory. It's a part of how hard it was and how hard it is."

IONESCU WANTED TO spread some love after the Liberty closed out their first-round series against the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday with a 91-82 win.

Spike Lee, the icon of New York basketball, had graced the front row at Barclays Center. In the third quarter, as Ionescu walked toward the sideline to throw an inbounds pass near his seat, he shook her hand.

"I felt like New York was just injected into my veins," Ionescu said. "At that moment, I was like, we're winning this."

She scored on the ensuing play, two of her 36 points on the night.

"Who wants some Spike Lee?" she asked from the dais.

She high-fived reporters with the same hand he had shook on her way out of the room.

Ionescu and the Liberty will return to Barclays on Sunday. The Aces will be there too. It's October. Memories will fill the air.

But this year, it's the Liberty who are the top seed. It's the Liberty who have home-court advantage. After going 3-0 during the regular season, it's the Liberty who are the favorites.

"We responded this year and we had the year that we did," Vandersloot says. "And it's something that gives us confidence."

But as the Liberty know, the Aces are still the back-to-back champions. It doesn't matter how many times the Liberty beat the Aces during the regular season if they can't get three wins to advance to the WNBA Finals.

The semifinals are a step closer to winning the franchise's first title. And to celebrating near a logo -- any logo. And to raising a banner to the Barclays Center rafters. The semifinals vs. the Aces are an opportunity to etch a new memory -- one that's celebratory -- and not a painful reminder of almost.

"We've got some unfinished business," Ionescu says. "We're going to play our best basketball because we've got a lot of basketball left in us."