In the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the WNBA Finals on Wednesday night, Breanna Stewart became unstoppable.
Stewart’s New York Liberty came out flat against the Minnesota Lynx, trailing by as many as 15 points in the first half. A record 19,521 fans were packed into the Target Center in Minneapolis hoping to see the Lynx take the lead in the series after splitting the first two games in Brooklyn.
But after halftime, Stewart almost single-handedly carried the Liberty back into contention. She had 14 points in the third quarter alone and scored 13 in a row for New York into the fourth to cut Minnesota’s lead to 71-69. The Lynx took a timeout, and the television cameras keyed in on Stewart in the huddle with an unmistakable fire in her eyes.
“We are not (expletive) losing this game,” she insisted to her teammates circled around her on the bench.
“That’s why I can’t be mic’d up,” Stewart joked with a grin postgame. “I could feel it. You could feel the momentum was shifting to our side. They were up, and their shots weren’t falling. We were getting good looks, and it’s like if we’re going to be this close, we’re not leaving here without this win. It’s really tough to play in this arena, but the way that we continued to stay together is something that I’m not shocked by, but I am really proud of.”
It took a shot launched from the logo by Sabrina Ionescu with one second left on the clock, but Stewart was right. New York took a 2-1 lead in the Finals with an 80-77 win over Minnesota despite leading for two total minutes in the game.
“We don’t win this game without Stewie,” Ionescu said. “What she was able to do, to just continue to chip away … there’s nothing that I could say. That shot was nice, but that doesn’t go against what she’s been able to do for us tonight and how she was able to just will us back into that game.”
Stewart, who had just eight points at halftime, finished with a team-high 30 plus 11 rebounds and four blocks. She went a perfect 10-for-10 at the free throw line and shot 50% from the field in the second half. Stewart is the first player in WNBA history to record multiple 30-point double-doubles in the Finals, previously doing so with 37 points and 15 rebounds for the Seattle Storm in Game 2 against the Las Vegas Aces in 2020. The only other player to log the stat line is Stewart’s Liberty teammate Jonquel Jones, who put up 32 points and 18 rebounds for the Connecticut Sun in Game 1 of the 2019 Finals against the Washington Mystics.
“I think that we were all kind of just waiting for our moment, waiting for for the script to flip a little bit,” Stewart said. “They punched us in the face in the first quarter, and we continued to wear them down. We knew that our pace was something that made them tired, and for me, it was just kind of like I was motivated. I was mad. And I liked my matchups that I had, and really attacking them to make sure that we could get this back into into where we needed to be for it to be a ball game.”
Stewart is legendary as a championship performer: She led UConn to four consecutive NCAA titles from 2012-16 and is the only women’s basketball player to ever win Most Outstanding Player at four consecutive Final Fours. She also won two titles in three years with the Seattle Storm, earning Finals MVP in both 2018 and 2020.
But Stewart hadn’t played like the dominant force she’s capable of being in the 2024 postseason before Wednesday night. She missed a potential winning free throw and a game-tying layup in overtime in Game 1, and she entered Game 3 averaging slightly below her regular season numbers in points and rebounds. Though she was defensively dominant in Game 2 with a Finals-record seven steals, Stewart’s most complete game came when New York needed it the most.
“I trust this team,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “In the second half … we were competing. We had heart. It’s not about your schemes and all that in these moments. It’s how hard you want to compete, and we did. Five players were on the same page … I felt confident, even at that last shot I felt confident, because we worked hard and we found a way to win.”
Even in the high of post-victory euphoria, Stewart was already looking ahead as she spoke to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter from the court. New York dropped Game 1 in remarkably similar fashion, giving up an 18-point lead to lose in overtime at Barclays Center, so the team had to win at least one in Minnesota to keep its title hopes alive. Stewart hadn’t lost in a championship since high school until the Las Vegas Aces beat the Liberty 3-1 in the 2023 WNBA Finals, and the superstar is well aware that there’s a lot of basketball left to play.
“The message is, we’re not done yet. We haven’t done anything,” Stewart said on SportsCenter. “We’re just getting started, and we know that now we’re up 2-1, but we have another huge game on Friday with a quick turnaround, so we’ve got to be ready.”
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