In the middle of the third quarter on Tuesday night, the Barclays Center crowd was befuddled by the scene playing out in front of them. After a huge series of plays by Rhyne Howard, the Atlanta Dream had taken an eight-point lead on their beloved New York Liberty.
Luckily for the Liberty faithful, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Sabrina Ionescu would see to that.
Less than two minutes later, Ionescu got into the paint for a tough and-one to tie the game. That was the start of an incredible stretch in which Ionescu scored nine consecutive points for the Liberty to put them back in front. They would never trail again, and went on to a 91-82 win in Game 2 and complete a sweep of their first-round series.
Ionescu finished with 36 points, nine assists and three steals on 12 of 23 from the field in the best performance of her career. Her 36 points were a new playoff career-high, the most in a series-clinching game in franchise history and tied for the most points in any postseason game by a Liberty player.
“Well dang, I should have had one more, huh?” Ionescu joked after scoring or assiting on 55 of the Liberty’s 91 points in the win.
“Obviously, do whatever it takes to win,” she…
