Liberty 67-62 Lynx (Oct. 20, 2024) Game Recap

NEW YORK – The New York Liberty finally won a WNBA championship after defeating the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in overtime of the deciding Game 5 on Sunday night.

Jonquel Jones scored 17 points to lead New York, one of the league's original franchises. The Liberty have reached the WNBA finals five times and lost each time, including last season. This time they were not deterred, although it took another five minutes.

The victory gave the city of New York its first basketball title since 1973, when the Knicks won the NBA championship.

While stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu struggled on offense, other players stepped up. Leonie Fiebich started OT with a 3-pointer, and then Nyara Sabally had a layup steal that made it 65-60 and sent the sellout crowd into a frenzy.

Minnesota didn't score in OT until Kayla McBride hit two free throws with 1:51 left. The Lynx missed all six of their field goal attempts in overtime. After Ionescu missed a shot with 21 seconds left, her 18th miss in 19 shot attempts, the Lynx had one last chance, but Bridget Carleton missed a three-pointer with 16 seconds left.

Stewart, who missed a free throw with 0.8 seconds left in Game 1, made two free throws with 10.1 seconds left to seal the win.

As the final seconds ticked down, players hugged and streamers fell from the rafters

Napheesa Collier scored 22 points to lead Minnesota before committing a foul with 13 seconds left in overtime.

The Lynx were attempting to win their record fifth WNBA title, breaking a tie with the Seattle Storm and Houston Comets. Minnesota won four titles from 2011 to 2017 behind the core group of Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus, Rebekkah Brunson, Sylvia Fowles and Maya Moore. That was the team's last appearance in the WNBA Finals until this year.

This is the first time since 2019 that the WNBA Finals will go the distance. Since the league switched to a best-of-five format in 2005, seven other series have featured a Game 5, and the home team has won five of those contests, including in 2019.

This series was a fitting end to a record season for the league. All five games came down to the last few possessions, including two overtime plays and a last-second shot, resulting in record odds.

The first three games averaged over a million viewers each, with viewership increasing with each contest. They also had large influxes of visitors.

Liberty fan Spike Lee was on the sidelines for over an hour before the game, chatting with the media while wearing his Ionescu jersey. After Ionescu finished warming up before the game, the two briefly exchanged words and hugged each other. Lee was part of a sellout crowd of 18,090 that helped this series set both the overall attendance record for a WNBA Finals and average attendance.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball