Jonquel Jones put up a double-double against her former Sun teammates as the Liberty won their fourth in a row Tuesday in Connecticut. Photo by Brandon Todd/New York Liberty
Breanna Stewart knows exactly how Jonquel Jones felt before paying her first visit to the team that drafted her seven years ago and watched her develop into a WNBA Most Valuable Player.
“Any time you go back home, to the team that drafted you, it’s a lot of memories, a lot of nostalgia,” Stewart remembered.
And a lot of continued success for the surging New York Liberty.
Stewart became the fastest player in league history to reach 4,000 points, Jones enjoyed a happy Connecticut homecoming with a double-double and the Liberty used a lock-down defense to pull out an 89-81 victory over the Sun Tuesday before a crowd of 7,344 at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
Stewart, a clear front-runner for her second MVP award this year, made her return to Seattle on May 30, playing against the Storm for the first time in her old arena after being selected first overall by the organization in 2016.
She put up 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Liberty to victory that night, a win she relished and recalled when talking about the normally stoic Jones’ return to the Nutmeg State.
“I think we played Connecticut early in the year, but it was at our place,” noted Stewart, referring to New York’s 81-65 win over the Sun in Jones’ initial reunion with her ex-teammates.
“She wants to play well. She’s a double-double machine.”
Jones lived up to that billing, scoring 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting, grabbing a game-high 11 boards and blocking a team-high four shots against the franchise that took her sixth overall in 2016 and watched her blossom into the 2021 WNBA MVP.
Stewart made sure her new teammate would walk out of Uncasville with a win. pouring in a game-high 24 points to go with nine rebounds.
The win lifted New York (10-3) percentage points ahead of the Sun (12-4) for the top spot in…
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