Breanna Stewart scored 25 points against her former team and the New York Liberty defeated the Seattle Storm for the third time this season, winning 80-76 on Saturday afternoon in New York.
Sabrina Ionescu added 20 points and aided with key plays down the stretch as the Liberty (13-4) won its third game in a row.
Sami Whitcomb poured in 19 points and Jewell Loyd tacked on 14 points for the Storm (4-14). Seattle has lost five straight games. Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu added 12 points and 14 rebounds and Ezi Magbegor had 10 points.
Loyd, the WNBA’s leading scorer (24.9 ppg), left with 7:01 remaining in the game with an ankle injury. Her status for this week and the All-Star Game is now in question. Seattle has games at Washington and Atlanta this week and the All-Star Game is next Saturday in Las Vegas.
Ionescu hit a 3-point shot for a 78-68 lead before Seattle rattled off the next eight points, capped by Sami Whitcomb’s basket with 1:39 left.
From there, the Storm had three shots to either tie or take the lead, but all of those were missed. Ionescu’s two free throws with 17.1 seconds left helped clinch the outcome. Seattle missed another shot to go 0-for-4 after its final basket.
Stewart shot 8-for-17 from the field with four 3s while grabbing a team-high eight rebounds. Nyara Sabally had eight points off the bench for the Liberty.
Stewart’s 3-pointer and a three-point play in a span of about 30 seconds late in the third quarter helped the Liberty creep out to a 56-52 lead, which expanded to 60-54 headed into the fourth.
Stewart entered the fourth quarter with 20 points, while no other New York player had reached double figures.
The Storm was aided by a huge rebounding advantage for the first three quarters. The margin on the boards ended up at 48-30.
In the first three quarters, neither team scored more than 20 points in a quarter other than the Liberty’s 25-point burst in the third that was boosted by the late scoring.
Seattle led 36-35 at halftime despite shooting 33.3 percent from the field and committing 10 turnovers.
New York scored the game’s first eight points and led 16-7 with less than three minutes remaining in the first quarter.
–Field Level Media
