Key Points
- The Liberty beat the Aces 93-85 at Barclays Center to become the first team to win two Commissioner's Cup titles.
- Sabrina Ionescu scored 26 points, a Commissioner's Cup Championship game record; Breanna Stewart added 25 and 11 rebounds.
- Four-time MVP A'ja Wilson sat out with a right ankle injury sustained Sunday against Chicago.
- New York overcame a 71-69 fourth-quarter deficit with a 15-2 run to pull away.
The New York Liberty won the WNBA Commissioner's Cup for the second time, beating the Las Vegas Aces 93-85 on Tuesday night at Barclays Center in the first championship rematch in the tournament's six-year history, ESPN reported. Sabrina Ionescu scored 26 — a Commissioner's Cup Championship game record — and Breanna Stewart posted 25 points and 11 rebounds as the Liberty pulled away in the fourth quarter after the Aces briefly led.
New York built a 51-37 halftime lead, setting a Cup Championship record for first-half scoring, before Las Vegas stormed back with a 25-14 third quarter that cut the margin to three. Jackie Young, shouldering the offensive load with A'ja Wilson sidelined by a right ankle tweak, scored 25 of her game-high 31 points in the second half and briefly gave the Aces a 71-69 lead early in the fourth. But Pauline Astier's three-pointer at the 7:08 mark ignited a 15-2 Liberty run that Ionescu capped with a three of her own to make it 84-73 with 3:39 remaining. Young missed a contested layup with 37 seconds left that would have cut it to three, and the Liberty closed it out from the line.
Wilson's absence — the four-time MVP tweaked the ankle Sunday against Chicago — was the defining storyline. Without the league's most dominant player, the Aces' defensive structure collapsed in the first half and their bench couldn't match New York's depth. Young was spectacular in a losing effort, shooting 12-of-21 from the field with seven assists, but Las Vegas was outrebounded 42-30 and sent to the free-throw line just 14 times to New York's 29.
The Cup, first awarded in 2021, has now been won by three franchises — Seattle, Minnesota, and New York — with the Liberty the only repeat winner. Stewart, appearing in her fourth Commissioner's Cup final, has won three of them across two teams. The victory comes with a $30,000 bonus for each Liberty player and arrives during a stretch when the broader sports calendar has been dominated by the World Cup. For a Liberty team that clinched its spot by beating the Mystics 86-64 on a seven-game winning streak, Tuesday's trophy is the first hardware of a season the franchise entered as defending WNBA champions.
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