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Sabrina Ionescu had a searing look in her eyes, and no I don’t mean before the shot. I mean after.
This shot was so grand, it zoomed past the need for outward exultation. Ionescu didn’t emit a roar after the ball rattled in, nor did she send jubilant fists flying through the air. She didn’t jump. She didn’t smile.
As Breanna Stewart approached her for a chest bump, Ionescu pursed her lips and widened her eyes, evoking a gladiator who just got a whiff of their rival’s demise. She summoned a level of intensity only available to the iciest snipers in hoop history.
A look that said, “It’s over. I went there. We won.”
There’s no better basketball scenario than the one Ionescu found herself in on Wednesday night at the Target Center in front of a record 19,521 in attendance, her New York Liberty and the opposing Minnesota Lynx knotted at a game-apiece in the WNBA Finals.
Tie game, shot clock off. Worst case? Overtime. Best case? Immortalization.
Jonquel Jones approached Ionescu to set a screen on Kayla McBride, then retreated, the Liberty putting their fate entirely in the capable hands of No. 20.
Ionescu approached the bottom of Minnesota’s midcourt logo with a left-handed in-and-out dribble, hit McBride with a fierce side-step, and lofted the basketball into a pantheon of snapshots that will define this glorious league’s history for the rest of time.
One second remained after Ionescu’s heroics, but Minnesota was unable to get a shot off on the other end. New York exhaled, taking Game 3, 80-77, in a spectacular fashion generally reserved for a fictional universe.
This was real.
“Definitely the biggest shot of my career,” reflected Ionescu postgame. “I visualize a lot when I’m practicing, in the offseason, the day before the game—putting myself in those situations.”
The shot—which was released from what felt like miles behind the three-point line and hung in the air to the tune of Father Stretch My Hands—completely sapped the air from a sold out Target Center.
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