NEW YORK — As Liberty stars Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart sat next to each other in the locker room earlier this season, Stewart was constantly in Ionescu’s ear. The 2020 No. 1 draft pick was sidelined by injury for all but one game during the first five weeks of the 2026 campaign, but Stewart implored her teammate to take her time, not rush back, and that the team would be OK without her.
Tuesday night’s Commissioner’s Cup final — a 93-85 Liberty victory at Barclays Center over their rival Las Vegas Aces — showed the fruits of Stewart’s leadership, Ionescu’s patience and the pair’s dynamic star power.
Stewart and Ionescu combined for 51 points to help New York become the first franchise to win multiple Commissioner’s Cup championships since the in-season tournament debuted in 2021.
Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said earlier Tuesday that, as Ionescu continues to get her feet back under her, the team still believed in her as one of the best players in the league. She proved them right with 26 points, 10 more than her previous season high, and accounting for five of the Liberty’s seven 3-pointers, including the dagger shot with 15.7 seconds left.
“Her game never takes me by surprise,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said of Ionescu, who also had five rebounds and five assists. “She’s too good, and by the way, I don’t know if anybody’s noticed in this crowd, she likes big moments and big shots.”
It was only Ionescu’s eighth game since returning from a back injury (and ninth overall this season). And after feeling as if she rushed back from injuries earlier in her career, she has had to learn to trust the process and play the long game in her recovery, as Stewart instructed.
But Tuesday’s showing announced to the rest of the league that Ionescu is truly back, garnering “Sa-bri-na” chants from Liberty fans postgame.
“I’ve always continued to have that belief myself,” said Ionescu, who also dealt with a foot injury earlier this year. “An injury or two is not going to diminish my understanding of who I am and the work that I’ve put in to get to where I’m at today. … [I had to] obviously continue to keep the faith and understanding the tables will turn at some point, and that was tonight.”
It was a performance that on most days would have earned Ionescu MVP honors, had Stewart not made such an outsized impact in so many facets of the game, finishing with 25 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks. Stewart became the first player in league history to win three Commissioner’s Cup titles, having also won with the Seattle Storm in 2021 and Liberty in 2023, and the first to clinch multiple Commissioner’s Cup MVP honors.
“I’m always going to stomp for A’ja,” Hammon said, “but Stewie, I could be effusive about that woman in the sense of how good I think she is. She’s just a winner.”
Before Tuesday, a player had never scored 25 points in the Commissioner’s Cup championship; Jackie Young also surpassed that mark with 31 for the Aces, taking on an even heavier load with four-time MVP A’ja Wilson sidelined by a right ankle injury.
Even still, Las Vegas refused to go away, primarily behind the efforts of Young and Chennedy Carter (18 points). Despite the Aces missing their first 13 3-point attempts of the game, they stormed back from down 17 early in the third quarter, ultimately taking a two-point lead early in the fourth. Bolstered by a 15-2 run, the Liberty did what they needed to do to on both ends — and won the effort plays along the way — to ensure their recent rut of four losses in their past five games would not continue.
New York finished with a plus-12 rebounding differential while also doubling up the Aces in attempts from the free throw line (29-14).
“I’m just really proud of the mindset and the mentality of this team. We were going to do whatever it took to get this win,” Stewart said. “We let some slip away, especially in our home court, but really taking pride of representing Barclays and getting the job done.”
The game doesn’t count toward the league standings, but it still was a confidence boost for the Liberty, who entering Tuesday had yet to realize their potential a little under halfway through the 2026 season. And yet as a snippet of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played over the PA system with the Liberty celebrating their Cup title on Tuesday — reminiscent of the scene from when they won their first league championship in 2024 — they hoped, too, it was a harbinger of what’s to come.
“It sets the foundation for who we are and how we want to compete every single night,” Ionescu said.
Added DeMarco: “You just can’t take these moments for granted. Obviously we have bigger goals this season, we want to win a WNBA championship. But this stuff matters too.”
