Sabrina INESCU matched a season high with 34 points and New York Liberty held rallies below 17 points to defeat Atlanta Dream 86-81 on Tuesday night.
INESCU has scored 34 points in each of the last two matches for Liberty (10–1). This is the first time he has done a 30-point game back-to-back game in his WNBA career. She was 12-for-20 shooting from the floor on Tuesday and 4-for-8 from the 3-point range.
This was the final game of the Commissioner Cup for both teams. Liberty ended 4–1 in the commissioner’s cup play, but lost the place in the championship game for Indiana fever based on the winning win on Liberty on Saturday.
Dream led 64–47 with 3:56 in the third quarter, the biggest drawback faced all seasons to Liberty, but New York overtook protective pressure and Eonceku and Breena Stewart (23 points).
Stewart put Liberty ahead of 81–79, with 1:56 left in the fourth quarter and then chased with a swoop drive for the basket for two more points.
Below 84–81, Atlanta (8-4) put it a shot to tie it with 6.8 seconds, but the step-wise three targets of Rin Howard were closed. INESCU made two free throw with 2.2 seconds to seal it.
INESCU helped Liberty gain a small lead at the end of the first quarter, going on the last 1:25 to run 7-0, which put New York ahead 24–20.
Atlanta entered the game 31 3-pointers per game, the highest in WNBA, and the second quarter began to fall long distance shots. Ruki Te-Hina Popo made 4 out of 5 to 4 and highlighted a career with 16 points in the first half. He did not score in another.
Atlanta led 37–31 after Havard with Havard with 3:58, but a few seconds later Dream’s leading scorer Alisha Gray went to the bench with three fouls and faced the aggressive flow of dream.
New York closed the first half from Stewart with a spirt with five straight points and pulled it on a halftime within 43–40. The first half of IONESCU had 20 points.
Gray ended with 14 points and Howard and Brona Jones made 13 episters for Atlanta.
New York has won eight of the last nine meetings on the dream.
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