Sabrina Ionescu hit the ‘biggest shot of my career,’ but the Liberty star isn’t done yet

MINNEAPOLIS — Sabrina Ionescu didn’t initially remember the details of the biggest shot of her career. She wasn’t sure how far she pulled up from or with which hand she was dribbling.

But rest assured, everyone who watched the New York Liberty star’s game-winning 3-pointer with a second remaining in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals will be able to fill in any missing details for Ionescu or anyone who missed Wednesday night’s thriller against the Minnesota Lynx.

Ionescu was the lone player to put the ball on the floor during the Liberty’s final possession, needing only nine dribbles to create enough space to separate from Minnesota’s Kayla McBride and elevate for a stepback 3. When Ionescu’s 28-footer was airborne, Liberty teammate Jonquel Jones said she thought to herself, “Oh my goodness, she’s about to hit this.”

As Ionescu’s shot fell through the net, the roars from a Target Center crowd of 19,521 fell to a hush as the Minnesota fans decked out in white T-shirts bent over in dismay. Ionescu turned to face those in front of the Liberty bench, and Breanna Stewart was the first to greet her on the other side of the Lynx logo, where Ionescu had pulled up from.

After the Liberty’s 80-77 win, which put them ahead 2-1 in the WNBA Finals’ best-of-five series, Ionescu said she has practiced that shot “a thousand times” — not just on the court but in her head. She visualizes different moments in offseason practice sessions and as she prepares on game days. But what happened Wednesday is no longer part of her imagination or a mere mental image.

“Got the space that I needed to get my feet under me and felt comfortable taking that shot,” Ionescu said.

A shot that will live in history.

Another look at Sabrina Ionescu’s GAME WINNER 🎯 pic.twitter.com/b7xxf7AvkY

— WNBA (@WNBA) October 17, 2024

Comfort created a classic. The shot is the biggest in Liberty history, a dagger that moves New York 40 minutes from its first championship. And yet, somehow, someway, it is also more than that. It is a validation of Ionescu’s years of hard work and a testament to her belief in herself.

“What I love about her is that she backs herself,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “Not everyone can take those big shots and make them. She can.”

Ionescu can — and does — because she has made them before: in empty high school gyms in California and at the University of Oregon. For the second straight game, Ionescu wore green-and-yellow sneakers, channeling the grit of her alma mater’s football team. Her college coach, Kelly Graves, was at Game 3.

She went up to him and Ducks assistant coach Jodie Berry afterward, and they told her they never doubted she would make her final 3-pointer. At Oregon, Graves said Ionescu was the only player he has coached who’s been kicked out of the Ducks’ practice facility. The Ducks’ Monday practices were normally reserved for players who had played fewer than 15 minutes in that weekend’s game. But Ionescu always jumped into scrimmages anyway, despite being a three-time Pac-12 Player of the Year and a Naismith Player of the Year award winner. “We couldn’t keep her out on Mondays,” Graves said. Her determination never wavered — to get inside the gym, to get out on the court or to succeed when the ball tipped off.

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Ionescu watched her game winner back for the first time in the locker room as she waited for Stewart. “It’s a shot that I take often,” she said. “I take (it) in practice, I take (it) before the game. It’s not like a Hail Mary, ‘hope this goes in.’ It was like, once I got it off, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is in.’”

What might get lost amid Ionescu’s late-game heroics is that Wednesday was far from her best game.

She did not take a shot in the first 10 minutes, let alone score a point, as McBride stifled her with physical defense extending far beyond the 3-point arc. At halftime, Ionescu had as many made field goals (one) as turnovers. And her final stats — 13 points, six assists and five rebounds — were modest by her standards.

Yet, the final possession was drawn up specifically to let Ionescu flourish. “We wanted her to take the last shot,” Brondello said. “She’s a great shooter, and she just needed a little bit of separation. Really proud of Sabrina and Stewie, but just how we stayed resilient.”

Without Stewart’s 30 points, including 13 consecutive New York points between the third and fourth quarters, the Liberty never would have erased a 10-point first-quarter or 8-point halftime deficit. But it is also a sign of the Liberty’s trust and chemistry that a two-time WNBA MVP didn’t touch the ball during the game’s biggest possession. And that she would be OK with that decision. “It’s a collective win even though some of us are shining a little bit brighter,” Stewart said.

That Ionescu would one day glow like this didn’t seem guaranteed throughout the early days of her WNBA career. The early stages of her New York tenure featured what she described as “dark days.” She was the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, but she suffered a severe ankle sprain in her third WNBA game and missed the remainder of her rookie season. Ankle pain lingered throughout the 2021 season, and it wasn’t until the 2022 campaign that she was fully healed.

But her perseverance put her in a position to achieve.

“Just so happy for her because I do see how much she puts into this,” New York guard Courtney Vandersloot said.

A few hours before Wednesday’s tipoff, the WNBA announced Ionescu as an All-WNBA second-team selection for the third consecutive season. After her game-winner, Ionescu said dryly: “That was just a great All-WNBA second-team performance.”

It was a fitting response. “She does not care about individual accolades,” her high school coach, Kelly Sopak, said. “She cares about the lights on the scoreboard. Whether she scores 30 or scores 3, she only cares about the win.”

The Liberty, an original WNBA franchise, are within striking distance of their first title. If they emerge victorious Friday, Ionescu’s shot will be fully cemented into the league’s history books.

“Definitely the biggest shot of my career,” she said. “And, hopefully, not the last.”

(Photo: David Berding / Getty Images)