MINNEAPOLIS — Sabrina Ionescu didn’t initially remember the details of the biggest shot of her career. She wasn’t sure from how far she pulled up or with which hand she was dribbling.
But rest assured, everyone who watched the New York Liberty stars game-winning 3-pointer with a second remaining in Game 3 of the 2024 WNBA Finals will be able to fill in any missing details for Ionescu or anyone who missed Wednesday night’s thriller against the Minnesota Lynx.
Ionescu was the lone player to put the basketball on the floor during the Liberty’s final possession, needing only nine dribbles to create enough space to separate from Minnesota’s Kayla McBride and elevate for a step-back 3. When Ionescu’s 28-footer was airborne, Liberty teammate Jonquel Jones said she thought to herself, “Oh my goodness, she’s about to hit this.”
As Ionescu’s shot fell through the net, the roars of a Target Center crowd of 19,521 fell to a hush and the Minnesota fans decked out in white T-shirts were bent over in dismay. Ionescu turned to face those in front of the Liberty bench, and Breanna Stewart was the first to greet Ionescu on the other side of the Lynx logo where Ionescu had pulled up from.
Ionescu said after the Liberty’s 80-77 Game 3 win, which put the Liberty ahead 2-1 in the WNBA Finals best-of-five series, that she has practiced that shot “a thousand times” — not only on the court but in her head. She visualizes different moments in offseason practice sessions and as she prepares on game days. But what happened Wednesday is no longer part of her imagination or a mere mental image.
“Got the space that I needed to get my feet under me and felt comfortable taking that shot,” Ionescu said.
A shot that will live in history.
Another look at Sabrina Ionescu’s GAME WINNER 🎯 pic.twitter.com/b7xxf7AvkY
— WNBA (@WNBA) October 17, 2024
Comfort created a classic. The shot is the biggest in New York Liberty history — a dagger which moves the Liberty 40 minutes from their first championship. And yet, somehow, someway, it is also more than that. It is a validation of Ionescu’s years of hard work, and a testament to her self belief.
“What I love about her is that she backs herself,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “Not everyone can take those big shots and make them. She can.”
Ionescu can — and does — because she has made them before, in empty high school gyms in California, and on the University of Oregon campus. For the second straight game, Ionescu wore green-and-yellow sneakers channeling the grit of her alma mater’s football team. Her college coach Kelly Graves was at Game 3.
She went up to him and Ducks assistant coach Jodie Berry afterward and they told her they never doubted she would make her final 3-pointer. At Oregon, Graves said Ionescu was the only player who he has coached who had ever been kicked out of the Ducks’ practice facility. The Ducks’ Monday practices were normally reserved for players who had played fewer than 15 minutes in that weekend’s game. But Ionescu always jumped into scrimmages anyway, despite being a three-time Pac-12 Player of the Year and a Naismith Player of the Year award winner. “We couldn’t keep her out on Mondays,” Graves said. Her determination never wavered — to get inside the gym, to get out on the court, or to succeed when the ball tipped off.
GO DEEPER
How Sabrina Ionescu went from ‘dark days’ of injury to the brink of a WNBA championship
Ionescu watched her game-winner back for the first time in the Liberty locker room as she waited for Stewart. “It’s a shot that I take often,” she said. “I take in practice, I take before the game. It’s not like a Hail Mary, hope this goes in. It was like, once I got it off, I was like, yeah, this is in.”
What might get lost amid Ionescu’s late-game heroics is that Wednesday was far from her best game.
She did not take a shot in the first 10 minutes of the contest, let alone score a point as McBride stifled her with physical defense extending far beyond the 3-point arc. At halftime, Ionescu had as many made field goals (one) as turnovers. And her final stats — 13 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds — were modest by her standards.
Yet, the final possession was drawn up to specifically to let Ionescu flourish. “We wanted her to take the last shot,” Brondello said. “She’s a great shooter and she just needed a little bit of separation. Really proud of Sabrina and Stewie but just how we stayed resilient.”
Without Stewart’s 30 points, including 13 consecutive New York points between the third and fourth quarters, the Liberty never would have erased a 10-point first-quarter or eight-point halftime deficits. But it is also a sign of the Liberty’s trust and chemistry that a two-time WNBA MVP didn’t touch the ball during the game’s biggest possession. And that she would be OK with that decision. “It’s a collective win even though some of us are shining a little bit brighter,” Stewart said.
That Ionescu would one day glow like this didn’t seem guaranteed throughout the early days of her WNBA career. The early stages of her New York tenure featured what she described as “dark days.” She was the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, but suffered a severe ankle sprain in her third WNBA game and missed the remainder of her rookie season. Ankle pain lingered throughout the 2021 season, and it wasn’t until the 2022 campaign she said she was fully healed.
But her perseverance put her in a position to achieve.
“Just so happy for her because I do see how much she puts into this,” New York guard Courtney Vandersloot said.
A few hours before Wednesday’s tipoff, the WNBA announced Ionescu as an All-WNBA second-team selection for the third consecutive season. After her game-winner Ionescu said, dryly: “That was just a great All-WNBA second-team performance.”
It was a fitting response. “She does not care about individual accolades,” said her high school coach Kelly Sopak. “She cares about the lights on the scoreboard. Whether she scores 30 or scores 3 she only cares about the win.”
The Liberty, an original WNBA franchise, are within striking distance of their first title. If they emerge victorious on Friday, Ionescu’s shot will be fully cemented into the league’s history books.
“Definitely the biggest shot of my career,” she said. “And hopefully not the last.”
(Photo of Sabrina Ionescu: David Berding / Getty Images)
