WNBA-leading Liberty hungry for Commissioner’s Cup repeat
The Liberty are sitting atop the WNBA world and Tuesday night on Long Island, they’ll be at the center of it when they host the Minnesota Lynx with the Commissioner’s Cup on the line.
The Liberty took home the league’s in-season tournament crown last year after defeating the Las Vegas Aces and will get the chance to win for the second consecutive year after going a perfect 5-0 in tournament play thus far, earning the right to host the game this time around.
However, with the NBA Draft creating a scheduling conflict at their usual home of Barclays Center, the game will be played roughly 20 miles east on the Queens/Nassau County line at UBS Arena.
The decision to play the game away from Brooklyn reportedly did not sit well with the Liberty organization after trying to solve the scheduling issue months in advance.
“It sucks that we play at UBS. I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Liberty forward Jonquel Jones told reporters. “We want to be able to play here at Barclays with our home crowd and everything. But ultimately, it’s still New York.”
The Liberty proved last season that it didn’t matter whether they are home for the Commissioner’s Cup championship game, defeating the Aces in Las Vegas, and this year they enter it as the best team in the WNBA with a 15-3 record.
The Liberty defeated the Atlanta Dream, 96-75, on Sunday night for their third consecutive win and their 11th in their past 12 games.
The Libs are off to their best start through 18 games in franchise history and even with several key players being banged-up, the Liberty haven’t appeared to lose a step.
Courtney Vandersloot and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton were both out of Sunday’s victory.
Laney-Hamilton (knee) and Vandersloot (ramping up conditioning after missing several games following the death of her mother) are questionable for the tournament championship and Nyara Sabally (back) has already been ruled out.
But the Liberty’s Big 3 of Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart have done more than enough to carry the workload.
All three put up double figures in Sunday’s game — Ionescu scored a game-high 26 points — and head coach Sandy Brondello has seen the team’s “chemistry continue to grow.”
“You talk about Sabrina and [Jones’] chemistry, their ability to move the ball and how we space the floor, but it starts with our defense, which can create offense as well,” Brondello explained. “We’ve got some great players who know how to put the ball in the hole and that certainly helps. … It’s fun to watch when they’re just playing selfless basketball.”
Tuesday’s game not only puts a chance to capture some hardware on the line, but also a shot at a cash prize of $500,000 for the winning team and each participating player receiving $5,000 in cryptocurrency.
“We want the money,” Lynx star Napheesa Collier told Minneapolis’ Star Tribune over the weekend. “It will be competitive, even if you take the money out of it. But you put that money on the line and people will be playing hard.”
