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NEW YORK – Sabrina Ionescu matched her season-high of 34 points to lead the New York Liberty to a double-digit comeback over the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday night, rebounding from the team’s first loss of the season over the weekend.
Despite Ionescu’s 20 first-half points, New York trailed by 17 points in the third quarter and were pacing to drop their second straight game after the Indiana Fever handed the reigning WNBA champions their first loss of the season on Saturday night.
But momentum quickly shifted hands midway through the quarter.
“I think we didn’t play well, we didn’t have toughness, we didn’t have urgency,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said of the first half of the game. “I think we found our identity, we found some energy… We just need to play harder sometimes.”
New York had seven turnovers to Atlanta’s three in the first half, but that identity crisis quickly faded behind another 14 points from Ionescu and Breanna Stewart’s 11. New York picked up their 10th win of the season with an 86-81 victory.
“We’re really proud of the way that we fought. And, obviously, that game could have easily gone the other direction and us just kind of giving up and being frustrated, and I think you were able to see a team that stayed together, dug really deep and then kind of just figured it out on the fly,” Ionescu said after the game.
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“I’m really impressed with our ability to do that because we haven’t been put in that situation this year – to go down that big and have to try and dig our way out of a hole, and I think all these experiences are just going to help us as we continue to play in games and the season goes on.”
Ionescu recorded a season-high of 34 points against the Fever on Saturday. She hit that mark again on Tuesday night to mark back-to-back 30-point games for the first time in her WNBA career.
Atlanta rookie Te-Hina Paopao led the Dream with 16 points, Allisha Gray added 14, and Brionna Jones and Rhyne Howard both finished with 13.
Atlanta entered the game tied with the Liberty and Fever in the Commissioner’s Cup games, but Indiana’s gritty win over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night clinched their place in the championship game where they’ll face the Minnesota Lynx on July 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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