Liberty Survive Sun in Breanna Stewart's Return
BROOKLYN—A bit of Sunshine proved to be good for the New York Liberty's health on Monday night.
With reinforcements slow trickling in, the Liberty survived a testy challenge from the Connecticut Sun in a return to Barclays Center by an 81-79 final on the night of Breanna Stewart's long-awaited return.
Stewart led the team with 19 points in her Brooklyn revival while Jonquel Jones put up the magic double-double that assured many a New York victory. Sabrina Ionescu likewise returned to action after a one-game absence due to a foot ailment and flirted with a triple-double to the tune of 11 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds. Stewart had missed the last 13 with a bone bruise on her knee while the Liberty still went without Natasha Cloud (nose), Isabelle Harrison (return-to-play conditioning), and Nyara Sabally (knee) in its return home.
New York (23-15) had just enough to get by the pesky Sun, which had won three straight by double-figures entering Monday night. Connecticut kept the Liberty sweating to the very end after the hosts jumped out to an early 17-point lead in the penultimate minute of the first period, nearly swiping away another victory from the contending New Yorkers.
Connecticut (9-28) creeped back into the game after holding the Liberty to only 10 second quarter points and led for a good bit of the second half before a 9-0 run in the fourth helped them establish some distance. Every tally was earned through a Ionescu connection with Emma Meesseman while the outlier, a corner three for Kennedy Burke, came off the feed from Meesseman, who came off the bench with Stewart back in the opening five.
That still wasn't enough to derail the resurgent Sun, which was sustained by deep prowess from Marine Mabrey and Aneesah Morrow (a united seven three-pointers), as well as the unexpected contributions of Leila Lacan, who played despite being listed as doubtful on the pregame injury report due to an eye injury. Lacan saw the net just find on Monday, earning a game-best 22 points on 9-of-15 from the field.
With New York up by two in the final seconds and trying to run out the clock, Lacan intercepted a Stewart pass and attempted to go coast-to-coast the other way. Burke and Ionescu were the defensive heroines, as both caught up to Lacan before she could complete her fastbreak and caused just enough interference to boot the ball off the rookie's knee and go out of bounds, allowing New York to officially wind things down.
The Liberty finish off a brief homestand on Thursday night when they welcome in the Washington Mystics (7 p.m. ET, My9).
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.