Sabrina Ionescu on Tuesday turned the first participant in WNBA playoffs historical past to log a stat line of 36 factors, 9 assists and 5 3PM in Liberty’s 91-82 win over Dream. The sharpshooting guard additionally got here away with three steals, together with a pair of essential defensive performs within the third quarter that helped New York seize the lead in a neck-and-neck recreation via the primary two quarters.
Ionescu’s huge second half noticed her pour in 21 factors, together with two momentum-swinging threes within the fourth quarter and 4 clutch free throws to ice the sport.
So, what precisely propelled Ionescu to her historic night time? In her post-game information convention , Ionescu revealed {that a} “excessive 5” from Spike Lee within the third quarter gave her superwoman-esque powers.
“Spike Lee gave me a excessive 5 as I used to be going to take the ball out of bounds, and I felt like New York was simply injected into my veins,” Ionescu mentioned. “At that second, I used to be like, ‘We’re profitable this.’ It was simply injected and got here right through [my arms].”
Ionescu revealed Lee saved egging her on all through the sport, however a excessive 5 from him throughout a essential juncture in an in depth contest gave her the final word motivation to energy the group to a win.
With the win, Liberty arrange a second-round conflict towards the defending champion Aces, the group they misplaced to within the 2023 WNBA Finals. Because the rematch will get underway later this week, many analysts really feel Ionescu’s red-hot kind may very well be the X issue that tilts the sequence in favor of New York.
Ionescu can also be a much-improved participant from final 12 months’s Finals when she tried simply 9.5 photographs per recreation within the four-game sequence versus the Aces. This season, she has the final word inexperienced gentle from coach Sandy Brondello, as evidenced by her trying a whopping 18 threes in two video games of the primary spherical.
