The Tribune

By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

GRAND Bahamian Jonquel Jones put up a dominant double double performance to propel the New York Liberty to a game one win over the Washington Mystics.

The leading Eastern Conference team dropped the seventh-seeded Mystics 90-75 to claim the first win of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) best-of-three playoff series.

The efforts of Jones and the Liberty’s guard Sabrina Ionescu meshed perfectly to lead New York to their first home playoff win since 2015 at the Barclays Center.

The former WNBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) charged her way to 20 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists and two blocks in her Liberty playoff debut.

Despite turning in a strong performance, Jones’ teammate Ionescu stole the show in the Big Apple after putting up an historic franchise postseason record of seven made three-pointers in the win.

To start the opening round of the WNBA playoffs, the Mystics came out on top in the first period outscoring the Liberty 29-23. However, in the second period, to lead into halftime, the stellar New York team outscored the 19-21 (win/loss record) Mystics 23-13 to regain control ahead of the intermission. Jones’ team led 46-42 to go into the locker rooms for halftime.

Following the break, Ionescu was on fire for New York in front of a packed crowd of 8,789 on their home court. The guard scored 20 of her game-high 29 points in the second half and canned six of her seven three-pointers after the break to cement a new playoff record.

Jones’ teammate also pulled down six boards and dished out two dimes.

The forward and guard offensive combo was essential to the Liberty’s latest win as the 2023 Associated Press Player of the Year Breanna Stewart had a tough game. She collected a mere 10 points on 3/16 shooting and was unable to connect on any of her four three-point attempts.

The Liberty jumped out to a 60-50 lead in the third period at the 3:27 mark following a pair of free throws made by Jones.

On the night the team was impressive at the charity stripe, converting 85.7 per cent of their 14 free throw attempts in the game one win.

One of New York’s best sporting teams currently outscored the Mystics 23-15 in the quarter.

Despite the Mystics trimming the Liberty lead down to six in the fourth quarter, Ionescu sapped their momentum after nailing consecutive shots from deep.

New York shot 44 per cent from the field in the game and 35.3 per cent from behind the arc.

The team cleaned the boards by outrebounding the Mystics 43 to 37.

Myisha Hines-Allen notched a playoff career-high 21 points for the Mystics in the loss.

The Liberty will look to bring out the brooms to complete the sweep against the Mystics at 7pm on Tuesday.