NEW YORK (AP) — Sabrina Ionescu’s first shot hit the side of the backboard. Another, shortly after, hit nothing at all.

After making one of the most memorable shots in WNBA history To win Game 3, the All-Star guard iced Ionescu the rest of the way.

Ionescu shot 1 of 19 from the floor on Sunday and Breanna Stewart wasn’t much better, but the New York Liberty got an MVP performance from Jonquel Jones to save her two co-stars.

Jones finished with 17 points and six rebounds in the Liberty’s 67-62 overtime victory over the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday night and was awarded the WNBA Finals award.

“Her dominance in the paint, on the boards, help defense, everything we needed, she was there,” Stewart said. “She had to wait a while to get to this point, to get to the finals to win a championship. But the wait was worth it.”

Ionescu finished with five points, though she added eight assists and seven rebounds. Stewart shot 4 for 15 and finished with 13 points and 15 boards.

“I just did what was necessary to win,” Ionescu said during the trophy presentation. “Believed in my teammates, believed in this entire organization. It costs everyone. You don’t do this alone, and we did that in New York.”

The Liberty built what they hoped would be their version of the kind of title-winning superteam when they brought in Stewart from Seattle, where she was a two-time WNBA Finals MVP, and Jones from Connecticut, where she lost in the 2019 finals, to join Ionescu, their No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft.

They took the Liberty to the WNBA Finals last year and the best record in the league this season, but it looked like they wouldn’t get a title as Ionescu and Stewart continued to misfire.

Ionescu opened the game by missing her first 13 shots, giving her 15 straight misses from Game 4, before finally hitting for the only time all night on a 3-pointer with 3:10 left, giving the Liberty a lead of 56-52.

But after Minnesota jumped to a 60-58 lead, it looked like the battle of the superstars would doom the Liberty for good. Stewart missed two free throws with 38 seconds left, but the Liberty knocked out the rebound, only for Ionescu to miss a three-pointer, and another after New York regained possession.

The Liberty got into overtime when Stewart hit two free throws with 5.2 seconds left in regulation. As she remembered the two previous misses, she said to herself, “No, I can’t do this again, I can’t. I have to be here.’

New York then got baskets from Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally in OT to win it.

New York hoped to avoid Game 5 entirely after Ionescu’s 28-footer gave the Liberty the win an 80-77 win in Game 3. But she shot 5 for 16 inches Game 4missing all five three-pointers, and Stewart was just 5 for 20 for 11 points.

But the 6-for-6 Jones was the workhorse the Liberty needed, finishing with an average of 18 points and eight rebounds in the series. That included 10 points in the first half Sunday to keep the Liberty close, as Ionescu and Stewart combined with just Stewart’s five.

“What makes her difficult is you spend a lot of time guarding Sabrina and Stewie in some of those schemes that have led to mismatches,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “But we have to live with some of that.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball