Breanna Stewart scored 22 points, including 10 in the third quarter, as the host New York Liberty climbed out of an early 16-point hole to defeat the Atlanta Dream 81-75 on Sunday afternoon.
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton scored 18 points, including a pair of big 3-pointers during the Liberty’s 16-4 burst to open the third quarter. Laney-Hamilton also chipped in six assists and five rebounds.
Stewart notched her 5,000th career point in her 242nd game, a WNBA record for the fewest games needed to eclipse that milestone. She bested the league’s all-time scoring leader, Diana Taurasi, who reached 5,000 points in 243 games.
The reigning league MVP, Stewart added 12 rebounds as New York (16-3) ran its regular-season winning streak to four games.
The Liberty were coming off a five-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game, which does not count in the league standings.
Allisha Gray netted 24 points and Tina Charles finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds for the Dream (7-10), who were looking to make it back-to-back wins over league powers after defeating the Connecticut Sun on Friday night.
New York scored the first 10 points of the fourth quarter, four by Leonie Fiebich, to build a 70-59 lead.
Atlanta tallied the next eight points, capped by Jordin Canada’s 3-pointer, to pull within 70-67, but the Liberty responded with treys from Sabrina Ionescu and Fiebich and stretched the advantage to 81-72 with 1:19 to play.
New York, which shot only 27.8 percent in the first quarter, finished at 39.4 percent for the game. The Dream, who entered the matchup last in the WNBA in field goal percentage at 39.8 percent, finished at 48.3 percent.
Atlanta dominated most of the first half and led 31-15 on Gray’s 3-pointer with 7:28 to play.
The Dream were still ahead 41-27 until the Liberty went on a 9-0 run in the final 1:40. Courtney Vandersloot had two assists in the burst, and her 3-pointer with 3.2 seconds left pulled New York to within 41-36 at the break.
Stewart led the Liberty with 11 in the first half. Charles paced Atlanta with 10 points and eight rebounds and Gray had nine points on 4-of-5 shooting.
–Field Level Media
