With revenge on their minds from last year’s Finals, the New York Liberty beat the Las Vegas Aces 87-77 on Sunday in Game 1 of the WNBA Semifinals.
The Liberty lost 3-1 in the 2023 finals, but this season’s matchups have taken a different tone. The Aces lost all three regular season meetings and start the series down 0-1 with an uphill battle on the road.
Breanna Stewart led the way for New York with 34 points on an efficient 12-of-19 from the field. Sabrina Ionescu posted 21 points on 9-of-16, pouring in timely buckets to halt second-half pushes by the Aces.
Jonquel Jones added 13 points and 12 rebounds. The All-Defensive Team duo of Stewart and Jones gave MVP A’ja Wilson trouble throughout.
Wilson finished with 21 points, six rebounds and five assists but struggled to get into the rhythm she had been in to finish the regular season. The Aces were led by Kelsey Plum with 24 points, and she single-handedly kept them afloat in the third quarter.
Stewart started the game scorching, giving the Liberty an early lead that they would maintain throughout. She was unstoppable in the first half, and her 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting gave New York a 10-point lead at the break.
The Liberty extended the lead to 18 midway through the third quarter, capped off by a 27-foot hang dribble pull-up by Strewart. After an immediate timeout, the Aces went on a 12-0 run, cutting it to six.
Plum scored the Aces' first 12 points of the third quarter.
Stewart started the fourth quarter on the bench with four fouls, but Ionescu took over from there and kept Las Vegas out of reach. She scored or assisted on the first 12 of New York’s 16 fourth-quarter points, sending the fans in the Barclays Center into hysteria.
The Aces struggled to get Wilson in comfortable spots like the high post, as the Liberty game plan focused on swarming her on every touch.
“The whole team was pretty much committed to taking away A’ja,” coach Becky Hammon said. “She had two, three people on her all night.
“So we have got to do a better job of getting her in space, but also getting her outlets and that’s just about playing the right way. If they’re going to put two or three people on her every time, the ball has got to pop on out of there.”
On the other end, Stewart was relentlessly putting guards into actions to create advantages all game.
“She had too many mismatches, we were switching guards onto her and [Jones] in that first half and you’re not supposed to do that,” Hammon said. “They destroyed us in there, both the bigs.”
Hammon candidly summed up the Liberty's dominance. “They came out and punched us in the nose, there’s no doubt about it,” she said.
The Liberty’s 28-point first quarter put the Aces on their heels, and a stronger start will be crucial if they hope to split the first two games on the road.
“We’ve got to start better,” Plum said. “Coach can say a lot of different things but it’s on the players to just play hard.
“Play hard the whole game, start to finish. We know they’re going to be super physical but that can’t stop the way that we play and our game plan. For us it’s a character check and a different team in Game 2.”
The Aces will look to avoid going down 0-2 on the road in Game 2 on Tuesday at the Barclays Center.