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Sabrina Ionescu replied to all 200 text messages after sinking Liberty winner
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Sabrina Ionescu replied to all 200 text messages after sinking Liberty winner

Nine seconds left. Nine dribbles from the inbound pass.

One shot: the shot of a lifetime.

Two hundred text messages later, 28-year-old Sabrina Ionescu has barely finished catching up.

“I responded to all of them on Wednesday night,” Ionescu said of the series of congratulations that followed her competition winner, as reported by Kareem Copeland of the Washington Post. “I’m a big supporter because they’re all people who supported me.”

Ionescu’s 28-foot dagger caught nothing but a net in the final seconds of Wednesday night’s Game 3 of the WNBA finals, propelling New York over Minnesota by a score of 80-77.

Sabrina Ionescu will score the game-winner in Game 3 against the Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday, October 16. NBAE via Getty Images

On Friday, the Liberty will look to close out the best-of-five series and secure their first championship in franchise history.

But first there were messages to be answered.

“Whether I win or lose, people always text me,” Ionescu told Copeland. “My husband got angry. He said, ‘Come on. Go to bed.’ I was like, ‘No, I have to respond to everyone and say, ‘Thank you.’

Sabrina Ionescu and the New York Liberty are one win away from winning the franchise’s first WNBA championship. NBAE via Getty Images

“The outpouring of support I’ve received from all the people around me means the world to me: every text and phone call, just knowing that it takes the village…” she said.

Among those villagers was the king of logo-3.

“Steph Curry left a really funny voice memo of him, like he was yelling into the phone,” Ionescu shared on SportsCenter. “And that was funny because we just had a great relationship and he’s been a great mentor to me.”

Sabrina Ionescu makes a game-winning 3-pointer in Liberty’s WNBA Finals Game 3 win over the Lynx on Oct. 16, 2024. AP

If Freedom prevails tonight (8 p.m., on ESPN), there will be more messages to answer.

If.

“I have turned the page,” Ionescu said. “I can’t stay on that high for too long because the job isn’t done yet and we have one more game.”

“And once we finish this,” she added, “I’ll probably watch it a million more times.”