There were plenty of moments in the second half when the Liberty were out of sorts, when they were far from the version of the superteam that made everything — at times — seem simple, but this one, late in the fourth quarter, was the dagger.
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton had missed her second free throw.
Kayla Thornton had collected the rebound. But as she looked to reset the offense, Breanna Stewart had started setting a screen, and when Thornton tried to connect with Stewart, the Lynx stole possession.
Bridget Carleton hit a 3-pointer at the other end to stretch their lead to 11.
The turnovers, a number that ended the night at 21 for the Liberty, kept thwarting any attempt at a late comeback.
“I think they executed better than us,” Stewart said, “and really, that’s it. … Twenty-one turnovers is never gonna win the game.”
What started as a promising Commissioner’s Cup — with the chance to repeat as champion and win the larger share of the $500,000 prize — turned disastrous for the Liberty with their turnovers and a silenced Jonquel Jones (three points, all on free throws) en route to a 94-89 loss Tuesday at UBS Arena.
Carleton led the Lynx with 23 points, while Napheesa Collier added 21 and six rebounds.
Liberty players will make around $10,000 each for the runner-up finish, according to the Associated Press.
“I think we were our worst enemy and just trying to kinda reinvent the wheel and not go to what was working,” Sabrina Ionescu said of the third quarter, when the Liberty managed just 10 points. “… Obviously, we were trying to get JJ going, and I think we kinda shot ourselves in the foot with that in terms of kind of going away from what really worked.”
The Lynx had successfully contained Jones earlier this season, too.
She connected on just 1-of-5 free throws May 25 to finish with four points, and on Tuesday, the Lynx used a strategy of “three-quarter fronting,” coach Sandy Brondello said, to deny entry passes.
That caused the Liberty spacing to become discombobulated. Turnovers happened when they tried to force passes toward Jones.
“They just kinda exposed us with their defense,” Jones said.
That was a stark difference from the first half, when the Liberty’s offense’s clicked with Ionescu at the center. She led the way with 18 points at halftime. She hit a 3-pointer from the Commissioner’s Cup logo, connected on a deep floater and stole a pass that allowed her to race down the court for an uncontested layup.
Courtney Vandersloot returned to the Liberty lineup for the first time since June 4 — and the first time since her mother died 11 days later — and she connected on her first shot attempt while finishing with four points, four assists and one steal.
But then it all flipped near the end of the second quarter.
It stayed that way, too.
A 33-13 run by the Lynx lasted until the first two minutes of the fourth. By that point, it was the Liberty that trailed by 10.
Stewart led the Liberty with 24 points and pulled them back into the game with a personal 9-0 run.
Jones didn’t score altogether until taking free throws with 80 seconds remaining.
The game was also accompanied by an underlying storyline that it needed to get moved from Barclays Center, with the frustration palpable ahead of the Liberty’s morning shootaround.
Stewart brought it up unprompted. Jones used the words “frustrated” and “annoyed” to express the Liberty’s displeasure for not hosting the title game, and a crowd of 7,015 eventually filtered into the home of the Islanders in Long Island.
They watched the Lynx establish themselves as a serious contender for the WNBA title.
They watched the Liberty’s bid for a championship fall short — just as it did in October.
That missed chance to achieve the type of forever that has evaded the Liberty since its creation left a scar, Brondello said pregame. “It’s a memory, but scars heal, too,” she said.
Less than a year later, though, the Lynx gave the Liberty another one.
