– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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UNCASVILLE, CONNECTICUT — There are a number of ways to make the transition for a player joining a new team easier on them, especially during that first game they play as a member. One of those is to have a teammate and star player have her best game of the season to take off some of the pressure, which Sabrina Ionescu did as Emma Meesseeman and the rest of the New York Liberty followed the guard’s lead to snap a rare extended period of losing.
Ionescu scored a season-high 36 points while adding 11 rebounds as the Liberty earned a share of revenge by defeating the Connecticut Sun 87-78 inside Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday afternoon. Former Sun standout Jonquel Jones added 21 points as New York, playing once again without the injured Breanna Stewart, snapped a four-game losing streak, its longest skid since 2022.
2022 was also the last year that Meesseeman, the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP while playing for the Washington Mystics, played in the WNBA, as she’s spent her time since then playing overseas — and winning the EuroLeague Women’s MVP the last three seasons. While the 6-4 center was thrust into the starting lineup for the first time in a New York jersey, she and the rest of the Liberty saw Ionescu continue to shoot her way out of a season-long funk as the guard scored 16 points of New York’s first 20 points. New York scored the last nine of the first quarter to take a 25-19 lead that they never relinquished. Ionescu and Jones combined for 33 first-half points, with Ionescu going for 20 in the game’s first 20 minutes.
Meesseman then found her groove in the second half, scoring nine of her 11 points. Seven of those came during a 9-2 run that saw the Liberty open up their first double-digit lead of the day, 54-43. Meesseman’s 11 points and three assists in the game came in 17 minutes played, as her time on the court helped to ease some of the Liberty’s injury woes as New York played without Stewart (bruised knee), Kennedy Burke and Nyara Sabally. New York had yet to win since Stewart suffered her injury during the July 26 defeat to Los Angeles in Brooklyn.
“It’s a hard schedule at this time, and there’s a lot of fatigue,” Meesseman said. “But I think just giving them some minutes, some glue, moving the ball, getting people open, just beautiful basketball, being part of that already in New York.”
Ionescu’s 30-point, 10-rebound game was her first since July 2022.
Tina Charles led four Sun players who scored in double figures with 17 points, as Connecticut could not double up on wins against the Liberty after it handed New York its worst loss of the season in a 78-62 win on Friday.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Sunday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by New England-based photographer Amy Abramson-Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 33 pictures in total.
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