Liberty's Ionescu Matches Knicks' Brunson's 3-Point Celebration
You can take the New York Liberty out of the Garden ... but you apparently can't take the Garden out of the Liberty.
New York Knicks fans seeking a local hardwood fix in lieu of the NBA Finals were treated to a historic performance on Friday night: the WNBA's New York Liberty took home a 106-83 decision from the Atlanta Dream at Gateway Center Arena thanks to an unprecedented effort from point guard Sabrina Ionescu.
In the win, Ionescu tallied a career-best 37 points, that tally built on a franchise record eight three-pointers (breaking the record Ionescu shared with six others). One of her tallies from deep saw her channel her inner Jalen Brunson, pressing her hand to her mouth and wagging three fingers in the style of the New York Knicks point guard.
Brunson acknowledged Ionescu's apparent homage, declaring "I see you" in a tweet that tagged her Twitter account. Ionescu responded "Yesssssir" in kind.
In her fourth season in seafoam, Ionescu has copied New York basketball's Villanova transplants: over the first few games of the season, she imitated the three-point celebration of Brooklyn Nets star and Brunson's former collegiate teammate Mikal Bridges. The latter's celebration extends his hand forward rather than keeping things close to the mouth like Brunson's. Bridges, a trade deadline arrival from Phoenix who is expected to be a cornerstone of the new-look Nets, has taken in several Liberty home games at Barclays Center from courtside seats.
Mimicking Brunson, however, brought Ionescu to historic heights: her 37 points in a single game were good for third-best in Liberty history (Breanna Stewart set the record with 45 earlier this season) and she became the eighth WNBA player to hit at least eight triples in a single game (one short of the record set by Indiana's Kelsey Mitchell in 2019).
"I didn't know what the franchise record for threes was, but (Atlanta was) going under (on defense). As a shooter, that's the most disrespectful thing you could do," Ionescu said about her night. "I shot it when I was open. My teammates got me the ball in great actions. I was just thankful we won at the end. of the day, I was just making the reads and shooting if I was open."
Brunson literally kept his celebration close to the chest: when asked by ABC/ESPN's Lisa Salters about its meaning and origins following a playoff win over Cleveland, Brunson coyly replied "Don't worry about it."
Ionescu is being equally secretive about her post-swish jubilation.
"My three-point celebration, I don't know, it just kind of comes as it comes," she said during the pregame. "I don't really think about it too often. I usually just get in the zone, in the game and something ends up happening ... whatever you see is what you're going to get, I can't tell you."
The interaction between Brunson and Ionescu perhaps brought back memories of the days when the Knicks and Liberty shared Madison Square Garden when the latter was under The MSG Company's umbrella. MSG was the home of the Liberty for 18 seasons (1997-2010, 2014-17) before the team was sold to Nets owner Joseph Tsai.
Before their Brooklyn-based rebrand, the Liberty's aesthetic partly mirrored that of the Knicks', with blue and orange being a big part of their color scheme. The two sides each reached their respective Finals in 1999 and also collaborated during the NBA's short-lived "2Ball" shooting competition held during All-Star Weekend at the turn of the century: Allan Houston competed in both editions, working with Rebecca Lobo in 1998 and Becky Hammon in 2000.
The concept was later partly revived as the "Shooting Stars" competition, in which a hardwood city submitted a current and former NBA player to collaborate with a WNBA star. New York's contingent won the event in 2012, with Houston and Landry Fields working alongside Cappie Pondexter.
The Liberty's next game is a de facto Brunson bowl, as they'll welcome the Dallas Wings to Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon (1 p.m. ET, ABC). Brunson spent his first four NBA seasons with the Mavericks before inking a $104 million deal with the Knicks last summer.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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