Stewart, Ionescu lead Liberty to Game 1 win over Aces in semifinals

NEW YORK — Breanna Stewart knows she wasn't at her best last year in the Finals when the Las Vegas Aces knocked off the New York Liberty.

She made sure that wouldn't happen in Game 1 of their semifinal series this year, scoring 34 points to help the Liberty beat the Aces 87-77 on Sunday.

“I think I’ve just kind of grown from it, had a lot of time to reflect on it,” said Stewart, who was dealing with the death of her father-in-law from cancer right before last year's series. “How I can be better. How to handle things collectively better. I don’t forget who I am and what I can do. ... That wasn’t my most proudest, but I'll continue to be better now.”

Game 2 of the best-of-5 matchup is Tuesday night in New York.

“Do or die, you have to win Game 2,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “No other way around it.”

The two-time defending champions have only trailed once in a series the last two years. That was against Seattle when they also were down 1-0. The difference was that they were at home for the first two of those games.

“We had to beat them three games in a row. We had our backs against the wall before,” Hammon said.

Kelsey Plum scored 24 points and A'ja Wilson added 21 for the Aces.

“It's a loss, that’s the only thing i see,” Plum said when asked about her scoring. “A lot of things I can do better individually and help my teammates collectively.”

This was a rematch of last season's WNBA Finals that the Aces won in four games, including clinching the championship in New York. The Liberty said they've had a scar from that loss and have used it as motivation all season long. New York had the best record in the league and earned the top seed in the playoffs.

Last season the Aces were the No. 1 seed, so New York had to go there for the opening two games of the Finals. The Liberty returned home down 0-2 and never could recover.

New York came out strong behind Stewart and led 28-21 after one quarter. Las Vegas closed to 37-34 with 4:11 left in the half before New York ended the second quarter with an 11-4 run to go up 10 at the break.

Stewart, who had 20 points in the opening 20 minutes, had six points in that spurt. She hit eight of her 10 shots in the first half.

“I think I wanted to come out and set the tone, be aggressive and take what the defence was giving me,” Stewart said.

The Liberty scored the first five points of the third quarter and the lead ballooned to 62-44 on a 3-pointer by Stewart. After a timeout, the Aces scored the next 12 points to get within six. Courtney Vandersloot finally ended the drought for New York with a layup that sparked a run to restore a nine-point advantage at the end of the third.

Las Vegas hung around and only trailed 75-67 until Sabrina Ionescu hit a 3-pointer with 7:34 left in the game and quickly turned to point to Spike Lee, who was sitting courtside wearing her jersey.

In Game 2 of the opening round series win over Atlanta, the basketball superfan gave the Liberty guard a high-five that she said felt like "New York was injected into my veins."

Ninety seconds later, she hit another 3 that whipped the sellout crowd into a frenzy.

Las Vegas couldn't get closer than eight the rest of the way.

Ionescu finished with 21 points and Jonquel Jones had 13 points and 12 rebounds for the Liberty.

“We came out, it’s Game 1, we wanted to play with a sense of urgency and protect our home court,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said.

This is the first time in the history of the league that the finals participants from the season before met in the semifinals. The league changed its playoff format in 2016 which allowed that to happen with the top eight teams making the postseason regardless of conference affiliation. Minnesota faced Los Angeles in the 2018 first round after the two teams had played in the WNBA Finals the previous two years.