In the middle of the third quarter on Tuesday night, the Barclays Center crowd was befuddled by the scene playing out in front of them. After a huge series of plays by Rhyne Howard, the Atlanta Dream had taken an eight-point lead on their beloved New York Liberty.
Luckily for the Liberty faithful, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Sabrina Ionescu would see to that.
Less than two minutes later, Ionescu got into the paint for a tough and-one to tie the game. That was the start of an incredible stretch in which Ionescu scored nine consecutive points for the Liberty to put them back in front. They would never trail again, and went on to a 91-82 win in Game 2 and complete a sweep of their first-round series.
Ionescu finished with 36 points, nine assists and three steals on 12 of 23 from the field in the best performance of her career. Her 36 points were a new playoff career-high, the most in a series-clinching game in franchise history and tied for the most points in any postseason game by a Liberty player.
“Well dang, I should have had one more, huh?” Ionescu joked after scoring or assiting on 55 of the Liberty’s 91 points in the win.
“Obviously, do whatever it takes to win,” she continued. They came out, and they played a hell of a game, and we came out here and took care of business. We owed it to these fans who came out here tonight and supported us. We’re not us without you guys, and we need you every step of the way, because we’ve got unfinished business.”
With the Dream now out of the way, the Liberty are on to the semifinals, where they’ll likely get a Finals rematch with the Las Vegas Aces, who celebrated the title on their home floor last season. In order to win their first championship, the Liberty will have to first get through the team that denied them the trophy less than a year ago.
The Liberty aren’t focused on those type of storylines.
“It’s us versus us,” Ionescu said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We’re gonna come out, we’re gonna play our best basketball because we’ve got a lot of basketball left in us. We’re gonna be at home for two of the games, we need everyone showing up, cheering loud and helping us win.”
