Sabrina Ionescu Is Back in Business As Liberty Win WNBA Commissioner’s Cup

BROOKLYN — The Aces present a very different challenge with A’ja Wilson on the bench in street clothes rather than dominating the paint in uniform. But they present a challenge all the same, and if there has been one particularly salient lesson here recently for the Liberty, it has been that a challenge of any size is a challenge worth taking seriously.

New York spent much of the last two weeks losing games it should have won. This group entered Tuesday having lost four of its last five—an ugly streak that came with some hard luck, yes, but also with some pointed calls for more heart in the locker room and better effort on the floor. No team in the WNBA entered this week more sorely in need of a win.

And it got one. The Liberty beat the Aces, 93–85, in the Commissioner’s Cup Final on Tuesday. It happened without Las Vegas star Wilson, who injured her right ankle over the weekend, leading to the reigning MVP’s first missed game of the season. But a win is a win, and this is one that felt critical for New York, a reminder of what this roster can do at its best and how it can recover even when it slips from that standard.

“I think it kind of sets the foundation for who we are,” Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu said. “And how we want to compete every single night.”

There was no one who exhibited that idea quite like her. Ionescu’s struggles have been part of the answer to any larger question about what has gone wrong lately for the Liberty. A preseason ankle injury kept her out for the start of the season. Then, just as she began working her way back into the lineup, Ionescu tweaked her back and was sidelined again. She has been healthy enough to play for the better part of three weeks now. But she has not looked quite herself. Ionescu has been shooting poorly, and the rest of her game has suffered, too. Her role has looked a bit undefined: This is the first season for the Liberty under new coach Chris DeMarco, and he’s continually tinkered with his rotations, both as a matter of experimentation and a matter of necessity. (Forward Satou Sabally has also missed significant time this season and was out again on Tuesday.) The guard has seen her usage rate drop to a career low.

Yet none of that was obvious on Tuesday. Ionescu poured in 26 points alongside five rebounds and five assists. It was her best performance of the season, by far, and a glimpse of the strongest possible version of the Liberty. With an aggressive, assertive Ionescu, this is a very different team.

That does not mean that Ionescu has to be the best player on the court. (Case in point: The Commissioner’s Cup MVP went not to her but to her teammate Breanna Stewart, who finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.) But when she is at her finest, Ionescu opens up the floor in a way that can shift everything for teammates. The last few weeks of her injury recovery have seen precious little of that: Ionescu has been shooting less often and moving less surely. It’s an uncomfortable shift for a player who has never lacked for confidence when healthy. But that was not the case on Tuesday.

Ionescu scored the first eight points of the night for the Liberty, building an early lead, and she scored the last five, slamming the door on a late push by the Aces.

DOING WHAT SAB DOES BEST 🔥

She drains this three-ball to lock in the 2026 WNBA Commissioner's Cup WIN for the @nyliberty!

LVA-NYL | Prime Video | 2026 WNBA Commissioner's Cup | @coinbase pic.twitter.com/zKH4ThTtpX
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 1, 2026

“When you’re coming back from an injury, it’s tough,” Stewart said. “Her being aggressive and making those threes—and that dagger three, especially—are big moments. We need that. And for her confidence to kind of rise along with that, I’m really happy for her.”

There is not any great clarity of purpose for the Commissioner’s Cup. After six years, it has lost its novelty, and the prize money does not matter as much as it once did in a league where player salaries have risen dramatically. Just one of the previous winners has gone on to win the WNBA Finals. The in-season tournament is not meaningless, but it’s hard to say exactly what it means, too. But the most obvious answer is the simplest one: It means whatever a team wants it to mean. For a team with championship aspirations in need of a way out of a slump, trying to define its roles and rotations under a new coach, there’s certainly enough for it to mean something.

“You can’t take these moments for granted,” said DeMarco, seated in between Ionescu and Stewart, all three of them already sprayed by champagne. “We have bigger goals this season. We want to win a WNBA championship. But this stuff matters, too.”

It felt hard to argue with him.

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