MINNEAPOLIS — Sabrina Ionescu initially didn’t remember the details of the biggest shot of her career. She wasn’t sure how far she pulled up or which hand she dribbled with.

But rest assured, anyone who saw the New York Liberty stars’ game-winning 3-pointer with a second left in Game 3 of the 2024 WNBA Finals will be able to fill in any missing details for Ionescu or anyone else who watched the thriller from missed by 2024 on Wednesday evening. Minnesota lynx.

Ionescu was the only player to put the basketball on the floor during the Liberty’s final possession. It took him just nine dribbles to create enough space to separate from Minnesota’s Kayla McBride and take off for a step back. When Ionescu’s flew 28 feet in the air, Liberty teammate Jonquel Jones said she thought to herself, “Oh my god, she’s about to hit this.”

When Ionescu’s shot fell through the net, the roar of 19,521 people in the Target Center fell silent and the Minnesota fans, decked out in white T-shirts, bent over in dismay. Ionescu turned to those standing in front of the Liberty bench, and Breanna Stewart was the first to greet Ionescu on the other side of the Lynx logo where Ionescu had come from.

Ionescu said after the Liberty’s 80-77 Game 3 victory, which gave the Liberty a 2-1 lead in the WNBA Finals best-of-five series, that she has practiced that shot “a thousand times” – not only on the field, but also in the field. her head. She visualizes different moments during offseason training and as she prepares for game days. But what happened Wednesday is no longer part of her imagination or just a mental image.

“I got the space I needed to get my feet under me and felt comfortable taking that shot,” Ionescu said.

A shot that will live in history.

Another look at Sabrina Ionescu’s GAME WINNER 🎯 pic.twitter.com/b7xxf7AvkY

— WNBA (@WNBA) October 17, 2024

Comfort created a classic. The shot is the biggest in New York Liberty history: a dagger that moves the Liberty 40 minutes from their first championship. And yet somehow it is also more than that. It is a testament to Ionescu’s years of hard work and a testament to her self-confidence.

“What I like about her is that she stands for herself,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “Not everyone can take and make those big shots. She can do that.”

Ionescu can — and does — because she’s made them before, in empty high school gyms in California and on the campus of the University of Oregon. For the second game in a row, Ionescu wore green and yellow sneakers that exuded the grit of her alma mater’s soccer team. Her college coach Kelly Graves was at Game 3.

She went to him and Ducks assistant coach Jodie Berry afterward and they told her they never doubted she would make her final 3-pointer. At Oregon, Graves said Ionescu was the only player he coached who was ever kicked out of the Ducks’ practice facility. The Ducks’ Monday practices were normally reserved for players who had played less than 15 minutes in that weekend’s game. But Ionescu always competed in scrimmages despite being a three-time Pac-12 Player of the Year and winner of the Naismith Player of the Year award. “We couldn’t keep her out on Monday,” Graves said. Her determination never wavered: to go to the gym, to hit the field, or to succeed when the ball deflected.

Ionescu saw her game-winner for the first time in the Liberty locker room as she waited for Stewart. “It’s a photo I take often,” she said. “I take the training with me, I take it before the match. It’s not like a Hail Mary, I hope this goes in. It was like, once I got it out, I was like, yeah, this is in.

What might be lost on Ionescu’s late-game heroics is that Wednesday was far from her best game.

She didn’t stand a chance in the first ten minutes of the game, let alone score a point as McBride stifled her with physical defense that extended well beyond the three-point arc. At halftime, Ionescu had made as many field goals (one) as turnovers. And her final stats – 13 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds – were modest by her standards.

Yet the final asset was drafted specifically to allow Ionescu to flourish. “We wanted her to take the last chance,” Brondello said. “She’s a great shooter and she just needed a little distance. I’m really proud of Sabrina and Stewie, but how we’ve stayed resilient.

Without Stewart’s 30 points, including 13 consecutive New York points between the third and fourth quarters, the Liberty would never have erased a 10-point deficit in the first quarter or eight points at halftime. But it’s also a sign of the Liberty’s confidence and chemistry that a two-time WNBA MVP didn’t touch the ball during the game’s biggest possession. And that she would be okay with that decision. “It’s a collective victory, even if some of us shine a little brighter,” Stewart said.

That Ionescu would one day shine like this did not seem guaranteed during the early days of her WNBA career. The early stages of her tenure in New York were marked by what she described as “dark days.” She was the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, but suffered a severe ankle sprain in her third WNBA game and missed the remainder of her rookie season. Ankle pain persisted throughout the 2021 season, and it wasn’t until the 2022 campaign that she said she was fully healed.

But her perseverance put her in a position to achieve.

“I’m so happy for her because I see how much she puts into this,” New York guard Courtney Vandersloot said.

Just hours before Wednesday’s tipoff, the WNBA announced Ionescu as an All-WNBA second-team selection for the third consecutive season. After her match-winner Ionescu dryly said, “That was just a great All-WNBA second-team performance.”

It was an appropriate answer. “She doesn’t care about individual accolades,” said her high school coach Kelly Sopak. “She cares about the lights on the scoreboard. Whether she scores 30 or 3, she only cares about winning.”

The Liberty, an original WNBA franchise, are within striking distance of their first title. If they emerge victorious on Friday, Ionescu’s shot will be completely enshrined in the competition’s history books.

“Definitely the biggest opportunity of my career,” she said. “And hopefully not the last.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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