MINNEAPOLIS – Breanna Stewart was benched in the fourth quarter of Game 3 in the WNBA Finals on Wednesday, with her team trailing by two points. The New York Liberty had rallied from a 15-point deficit in the first quarter, thanks in large part to an outstanding 30-point night from Stewart.

Before the Liberty returned to the field against the home team Lynx and their 19,521 fans eager to see Minnesota return to championship glory, Stewart emphatically delivered a simple message before the timeout ended.

“We’re not going to lose this game.”

“I could feel it,” Stewart said of the moment. “You could feel the momentum shifting in our direction. It was like, if we were that close, we weren’t going to leave here without this win.”

The Liberty fulfilled Stewart’s plea.

After 11 points in the final 2:10 from Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones – capped by Ionescu’s 28-foot 3-pointer to win the game – New York pulled off an 80-77 comeback victory, bringing it within one win of winning the 2024 WNBA title.

And while Ionescu’s final shot might be the game’s lasting image, the Liberty – who are chasing the franchise’s first championship – would have been on life support without Stewart’s monster night on both ends of the floor.

The two-time WNBA, four-time NCAA champion and two-time WNBA MVP finished with 30 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocks, making her the only player in league history with multiple 30-10 finishes. She is also the only player to have a 30-point finals game for two different franchises, her previous coming with the Seattle Storm.

“We won’t win this game without Stewie,” Ionescu said. “What she was able to do was just keep chipping… that (game-winning) shot is nice, but that doesn’t go against what she was able to do for us tonight and how she was able to just get us back in that game.”

“She carried us,” Jones added of Stewart. “Without her, we wouldn’t be in a position to make those big plays.”

This year’s WNBA Finals were a roller coaster for Stewart and the Liberty. In Game 1, New York blew a 15-point lead with five minutes left before losing in overtime. Stewart missed what would have been the game-winning free throw with 0.8 left in regulation time, as well as a layup in overtime that would have tied the score just before the final buzzer.

After Stewart’s 21-point, 5-steal outing, the Liberty bounced back in Game 2. But in Minnesota’s first home game of the series, New York was hit first, struggling early against the Lynx’s defensive pressure and committing 8 turnovers in the first quarter. Minnesota turned this into 14 points to help build a double-digit lead.

Stewart started to heat up in the second period with six points, helping New York cut the deficit to a manageable eight going into the break. But she put her foot on the gas after halftime: With a pair of three-pointers, a few hard jump shots and multiple and-1s, Stewart scored 13 straight points for the Liberty in the third and fourth periods, tying the score and setting the score evened out. most consecutive team points scored by a single player in the WNBA Finals.

Her 22 points in the second half were the fourth most by a player in both halves in finals history.

“She made big, big plays and had a big effort,” Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot said. “When we couldn’t really score, she got some big buckets, which kind of got our offense going. … That’s what you expect from your superstars.”

Stewart’s effort defensively was equally impressive. In addition to her rim protection — three of her four blocks came in the second half — Stewart held the Lynx to 4-for-15 shooting as the primary defender and forced four turnovers. Over the past two games, Lynx star Napheesa Collier has shot 4-for-12 and scored six goals against Stewart.

“You just see her experience, right? She’s a great player,” New York guard Leonie Fiebich said. “Just on offense and defense, she made such big plays for us. She never gave up. She always came in and flew somewhere from the defensive end. It was great to see her perform like that.”

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Game 3 mirrored Game 1: The road team erased a big deficit – New York trailed by as many as 18 last Thursday – to come away with the win. Since that heartbreaking defeat, “Stewart and the Liberty were all waiting for our moment, waiting for the script to flip a little bit,” she said.

“I was motivated,” Stewart said of Wednesday’s game. “I was angry (that New York was losing). And I liked my matchups that I had, and I really attacked them to make sure that we could get this back to where we needed to be so that it was a ball game would be.”

With one more win, Stewart can bring the Liberty the championship she envisioned when she signed with the team in free agency ahead of the 2023 season. She can fully exorcise any demons remaining after 2023 ends — a 3-for-17 Game 4 performance as the Las Vegas Aces celebrated the WNBA title on Liberty’s home floor. And if New York wins in a decisive Game 5 on Friday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) or Sunday, Stewart could become only the second WNBA player, and the first since Cynthia Cooper, to win at least three Finals MVPs.

But the glory of what lay ahead was not a concern for Stewart after Wednesday’s game. The job isn’t done yet, she repeated.

“We know we’re one game away from winning the championship, and I think they’ll give us their best shot,” Stewart said. “They’re going to give it everything they’ve got, and you know what, so are we.”