Breanna Stewart had nearly a year to think about the 2023 WNBA Finals. There was how the series ended, of course, with her New York Liberty falling to the Las Vegas Aces—the forward had the ball in her hands, down by one, just seconds to go, and made the uncharacteristic choice to pass rather than shoot. She could only watch as their final shot failed to fall.
But there had been four games of frustration leading up to that last moment of disappointment. Stewart was notably limited against the Aces. The leading scorer in the regular season for the Liberty, she was held below her average in every game of the series, and she managed to lead her team in scoring just once in those Finals. She has tried not to dwell on it. Still: 11 months, one week and five days is a long time for a player as talented as Stewart to sit with a performance as frustrating as that one.
“Unfortunately,” Stewart told reporters on Sunday, “a lot of time to think about it.”
She now has something different to think about. Stewart used Game 1 of this semifinals matchup between New York and Las Vegas to overwrite any lingering disappointment from last year. If you wanted to see the kind of dominance that has made her a two-time Finals MVP—if you needed a reminder that even as the Liberty have grown deeper, better, more balanced, Stewart is still the engine of this group—she delivered. Stewart scored 20 of her 34 points in the first half. The rest of the Liberty followed suit to open the series with an 87–77 win.
“Personally, I just wanted to come out and set the tone to be aggressive,” Stewart said.
Neither of these rosters has changed too much since last year’s Finals. (Nine of the 10 combined starters from Game 1 last October were still in starting roles here on Sunday.) But they fit together very differently than they did a year ago. New York has developed its chemistry over the course of the season, looking more fluid and communicative, especially on defense. This group was built last year to be a superteam. It now finally seems like one. The Aces, meanwhile, struggled this season in a way they had not in years. Vying for back-to-back-to-back championships, Las Vegas posted its lowest winning percentage since 2019, even with an impressive display of dominance by MVP forward A’ja Wilson. Her season was arguably the best ever in the WNBA. But even that could do only so much for a team where the defense could look disjointed and the offense frequently struggled to control the pace. The Aces did seem to relocate their identity down the stretch. “I really feel like we have our edge back,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said before Game 1. They did not have it on the floor later that afternoon.
The Aces’ defense consistently felt a step behind. They struggled to keep pace in transition and got lost on switches. Hammon acknowledged that it had been difficult to communicate on the floor: Barclays Center was so loud that players could not always hear each other. (The boisterous crowd included Spike Lee, sitting courtside, who chirped at refs and opposing players alike.) The lapses meant that Stewart and her fellow Liberty big, Jonquel Jones, were able to feast on mismatches. (Jones had 13 points and 12 rebounds.) And when Las Vegas tried to recalibrate its approach in the second, it only served to open up Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 21.
“We understand how we want to play and how we want to exploit them as much as we can,” said Liberty coach Sandy Brondello. “But also just having patience—I thought we had really good patience. We’d seek the best shot most possessions.”
Las Vegas could not contend with the length of New York. The Liberty stuck with a change they had experimented with during the first round of the playoffs: They started 6’4” Leonie Fiebich over 5’8” Courtney Vandersloot. (This was the only change from the starting lineups these two teams used in Game 1 last October; Vandersloot still contributed 15 minutes off the bench.) Fiebich adds size, but the rookie can also space the floor, offering a legitimate shooting threat from outside. And she is a smart, capable defender, too. “They’re big,” Hammon said before the game. “We’re fast.” But the Aces could not outrun the Liberty, or outfox them, or outshoot them. New York had the size advantage, clearly, bolstered by Fiebich. It also seemed to have every other advantage. And the Aces had no response.
“They just kicked our ass in every area of the game,” Hammon said.
Which is not enough, on its own, to erase the pain of last year for the Liberty. But it’s certainly a start.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Breanna Stewart Leads Liberty in Revenge Matchup Over Aces.