New York City can’t shake that winning feeling. While the Knicks’ celebration party is still going on, the New York Liberty sweeps aside the Washington Mystics to reach their third Commissioner’s Cup Final in four years.

The Mystics had no answer to the Liberty as Breanna Stewart stormed the first half, equaling a WNBA record in the process. She scored 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks in the first half. This makes her only the second player in league history to do so in any half of a match since Brittney Griner.

Stewart capped off the night with 14 points, 12 rebounds, and a career high of 7 blocks. This statement performance from Breanna and the team indicates that they can only get better as the season progresses. That is, if they are not bitten by the injury bug.

It was expected that the Liberty would look to dominate and take the lead early. Sabrina Ionescu had some minutes in this game as well. Right from the moment she was introduced, the crowd went into electric applause. Coach Chris DeMarco had his entire roster fit and available for the first time this season. But nobody expected Breanna would start things off this quickly.

“I think just having a good awareness,” Breanna said to the media after the match. “Basically who you’re guarding, knowing kind of what they want to do And the blocking? I don’t know. You can’t teach timing. You just have to have a good sense of when to go up and get it,”

And rightly so, the Mystics did not get any easy shots. They tried to exploit the gaps in Liberty’s forward line, but were met with a wall-like defense. They were held to just 33.8% shooting from the field. Pressure got the better of this Mystics team as they committed a staggering 18 turnovers.

Breanna Stewart is leading this team in scoring at 20.8 points per game, also putting up 8.8 rebounds per game. She is operating as an elite two-way anchor for the Liberty. She is enabling the rookies to get open spaces and get on board as well.

The win makes Liberty the Eastern Conference representatives for the Commissioners Cup. They will need to wait to see their opponents and whether they play the cup final at home court.

Breanna is the star, but Liberty are a balanced team

Breanna Stewart is obviously the star of this team. But they are not a one-woman show. This team is perhaps the most balanced in terms of roster strength in the entire league.

In the absence of key players like Sabrina Ionescu, they have had their rookies step up and fill those gaps.

Pauline Astier has been fantastic. She leads this Liberty team in assists at 3.8 per game. Ionescu’s scoring output has been somewhat compensated for as well. Astier and Marine Johannes are now averaging around 11.7 points per game.

While Stewart and Jonquel Jones are doing the heavy lifting, role players are playing without fear too. In the game against the Mystics, coach DeMarco had high praise for Xan Hu.

“She’s a very good WNBA player,” Chris DeMarco said, as per Netsdaily. “She can shoot. She’ll post up. Defensively, she has a lot of size. She’s rebounded well in man coverage and in zone.”

” I just think she continues to get better, and we wanted to be a little bit more aggressive today. I think she did a good job of that as well,” he added.

The Liberty are now looking like serious title contenders. Fans are now dreaming of both the men’s and women’s championships coming to New York this year. With Ionescu getting more minutes, this team would do well to preserve the chemistry they have enjoyed till now.