NEW YORK (AP) — Breanna Stewart scored 27 points and Sabrina Ionescu added 24 to help the New York Liberty hold on to beat the Golden State Valkyries 82-77 on Thursday night and remain unbeaten.
The teams met on Tuesday and New York routed expansion Golden State 95-67, jumping to a 17-point lead in the first quarter. The Valkyries were much more competitive two days later, giving the defending champions all they could handle.
New York took a 78-77 lead in the back-and-forth affair on two free throws by Stewart with 1:35 left. Golden State had a few chances to retake the lead, but missed three 3-pointers in the next 35 seconds. After a timeout, the Valkyries then had a 5-second call on the inbounds, giving the Liberty the ball back with 43.6 seconds left.
The Liberty (5-0) then ran the clock down on the next possession before Natasha Cloud drove the lane for a layup to make it 80-77 with 24 seconds left.
Golden State (2-3) had one last chance but Cecilia Zandalasini missed a potential tying 3-pointer and Cloud hit two free throws.
The game featured 20 lead changes and 16 ties.
Janelle Salaün led the Valkyries with 18 points and 13 rebounds.
New York had scored more than 90 points in each of its first four games, but couldn’t do it against Golden State on Thursday. The Liberty fell one game short of tying the Las Vegas Aces as the only team in WNBA history to begin a season with five straight 90-point games, doing so in 2023. That team went on to win its second straight WNBA championship.
The Liberty were missing center Jonquel Jones, who was dealing with a rightt hamstring issue. This was the first of three games in four days for the Liberty, who play at Washington on Friday before hosting Connecticut on Sunday.
Actor Jackie Chan was at the game and met with Ionescu and Golden State head coach Natalie Nakase before the game. Nakase is the first Asian American head coach in WNBA history.
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
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