Breanna Stewart swatted the momentum the Indiana Fever built during the three-game win streak they carried into New York Wednesday night. Indiana (12-11) left with a 21-point, bruising defeat.
Stewart blocked four shots in a masterful two-way performance against a Fever team that was missing Caitlin Clark and playing its second straight road game in as many days.
The Liberty (15-6) dribbled out a 98-77 win to the tune of a standing ovation in the Barclays Center.
Stewart, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time league MVP, dazzled on both ends, clocking out with 24 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists and, of course, those 4 blocks.
“I just wanted to be aggressive and really set the tone and tempo for my team and make sure that we came out every single quarter ready to go and ready to play,” Stewart told the broadcast in her postgame interview.
Hours before tip-off, Clark was ruled out with the groin injury that she reaggravated during Tuesday’s win over the Connecticut Sun. Clark is a second-time All-Star as well as a captain for Saturday’s All-Star Game. Her status for the midseason exhibition, plus the 3-point contest, is up in the air.
While Indiana has found ways to win without Clark this season, the Fever are always going to be fighting an uphill battle in that position if their other former No. 1 overall pick, center Aliyah Boston, isn’t at her best. For the second game in a row, Boston struggled from the field. A day removed from a 2 of 6 outing against the Sun, she shot a mere 1 of 8 Wednesday versus the Liberty. While Boston dished a team-high six assists without a turnover, she scored only seven points.
Meanwhile, New York’s star duo flourished into the third quarter. In fact, early in the frame both Stewart and four-time All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu had 15 points. Although they flirted with a fourth game this season in which each of them tallied 20-plus points, Ionescu cooled off down the stretch and actually finished just 5 of 14.
The same couldn’t be said for fellow guard Marine Johannès. The French native heated up in the fourth quarter. Two of her four 3-pointers came within a two-minute span in the final four minutes of play. After she knocked down the second one in transition, Fever head coach Stephanie White called a timeout.
Ionescu shot off the bench and onto the court before giving Johannès a hug.
New York hit 14 of 27 3s, posting a far better 3-point percentage (51.9%) than the Fever’s overall field goal percentage (36.8%) Wednesday night.
“All-Star break is a nice time for us to rest and regroup, but we had to get this win first,” Stewart said in her on-court postgame interview.