Jonquel Jones roars with delight along with Breanna Stewart and Betnijah Laney as the Liberty advanced to the WNBA Finals Sunday. AP Photo by Jessica Hill
The New York Liberty spent the winter collecting two of the league’s top free agents, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot, and acquiring a former Most Valuable Player, Jonquel Jones, via trade in the hopes of reaching their first WNBA Finals since 2002.
Mission accomplished!
But plenty more to do if the Liberty want to hoist their first-ever WNBA championship trophy later this month.
Stewart scored 27 points, Jones added 25 points and 15 rebounds and Betnijah Laney added 21 points as New York held on for a dramatic 87-84 Game 4 win Sunday to close out its semifinal series with Connecticut in front of 8,196 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena.
The Liberty signed Stewart and Vandersloot to cap their offseason haul, which began with the three-team swap that landed Jones here in Brooklyn.
Adding that talent to a squad that already boasted All-Stars Sabrina Ionescu and Laney made New York one of the league’s “Super Teams” and a preseason favorite to meet reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas in the Finals.
The Aces completed a three-game sweep of Dallas Friday in their semifinal series, setting up exactly what many had anticipated before the opening tip of this first-ever 40-game WNBA campaign.
The Finals will open in Sin City on Sunday.
Before then, however, the Liberty get to relish reaching the franchise’s first title series in 21 years.
“Obviously, the goal was let’s bring in the talent and let’s make a run for this,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “We certainly did that.”
They almost didn’t.
After losing the opening game of this series, the Liberty got well at home in Game 2 and posted an 11-point win in Connecticut in Game…
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