Liberty on the brink back in Brooklyn

Jonquel Jones and the Liberty need to win Game 3 of the WNBA Finals in Brooklyn Sunday or their dream season will end on a sour note. Photo: John Locher, AP

A season teeming with historic promise has come down to one with no margin for error for the New York Liberty.

โ€œWin or go home!โ€ is what they usually call a potential elimination game.

But the Liberty are coming home to Downtown Brooklyn on Sunday with the hope of saving and extending the winningest campaign this franchise has ever had in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals at Barclays Center.

โ€œWeโ€™ve got to find some urgency. Weโ€™ve got to find some pride in how weโ€™re playing,โ€ said Liberty coach Sandy Brondello after her unit suffered a wire-to-wire 104-76 Game 2 loss Wednesday night in front of 10,232 fans at Michelob ULTRA Arena.

The New York Liberty look glum on the bench Wednesday night in Las Vegas after falling into an 0-2 hole in the WNBA Finals. Photo: John Locher, AP

New York (0-2), still desperately seeking its first championship since entering the league during its inaugural season in 1997, lost consecutive games for the first time this year in troubling fashion Wednesday night.

The defending champion Aces (2-0) opened Game 2 on a staggering 19-2 run and never looked back, moving within one victory of becoming the first back-to-back titleholders the league has seen since the 2001-02 Los Angeles Sparks.

โ€œBasketball is a game of runs,โ€ said Vegas forward Aโ€™ja Wilson after putting up game highs of 26 points and 15 rebounds. โ€œTheyโ€™re a great team, so we have to continue to put our foot on the gas.โ€

Wilson became just the third player in Finals history with at least 25 points and 15 boards, joining Liberty forwards Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart on that short list.

Jones and Stewart accomplished the feat with their previous franchises, Connecticut and Seattle, respectively.

Now, the duo faces the grim reality of not delivering our boroughโ€™s first pro sports title since 1955,…

Read the full article here


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *