Because of how compelling and entertaining the shootout was, a lot of folks want Curry and Ionescu to run it back.
And some folks want to add an extra wrinkle to the contest, making it a two-on-two matchup, with Curry and his former co-Splash Brother Klay Thompson on one side, and Ionescu with a WNBA partner on the other.
Who would Ionescu pick? She revealed her answer in the hypothetical scenario on Saturday when she joined the FOX college football set ahead of her top-ranked alma mater Oregon hosting Maryland.
“If I would have to choose, I’m taking Caitlin Clark on my team.”
Sabrina Ionescu reveals who she’ll partner with in a 3-point shooting contest against Steph Curry and Klay Thompson at the 2025 All Star weekend. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/w93ubgVuoE
This past season, Clark and Ionescu ranked first and fourth respectively in 3-pointers made per game, and both knocked down north of 100 shots from behind the arc.
Let’s see it. Set up Klay and Steph versus Caitlin and Sabrina at All-Star Weekend 2025.
Sabrina Ionescu wore a sick custom Nike championship jacket to the Liberty’s parade, and it was awesome.
The New York Liberty held its championship parade Thursday for thousands of fans to celebrate the city’s first WNBA title. As you might suspect, there was plenty of celebrating to do after a thrilling five-game series with Minnesota that took New York down to the wire.
When something like that happens, you gotta celebrate big. And if you’re Sabrina Ionescu, that means stunting in a custom jacket at the victory parade. Sab rolled through New York in a SWEET black, white and seafoam look, complete with the records it took to beat the Dream, Aces and Lynx, her logo, and several phrases like “Liberty has a nice ring to it.”
[autotag]Kayla McBride[/autotag] has experienced a lot in her 11 WNBA seasons, including four All-Star selections, one of which came this year. But the former Notre Dame guard has yet to call herself a champion. That could be about to change.
McBride and the Minnesota Lynx forced a decisive Game 5 in the WNBA Finals after defeating the New York Liberty in Game 4, 82-80. Bridget Carleton made a pair of free throws with two seconds left to put the Lynx in front. Sabrina Ionescu’s would-be buzzer-beating 3-pointer wound up an air ball, denying the Liberty their first championship for the moment.
McBride led the Lynx with 19 points. She also grabbed two rebounds and dished out four assists. Through four games in the series, she is averaging 17.0 points, 1.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting 43.1% from the field.
The Lynx currently have four championships in their history. A fifth would give them the most for any WNBA franchise. Here’s hoping McBride gets to be part of that fifth title, assuming she can bring herself to watch:
kayla mcbride on the other end of the court being nervous with us while bridget carleton was shooting her free throws. her saying “i can’t watch” girl same 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/okOgY0Xbgd
Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes and opinions.
Liberty fans probably fell to their knees watching this.
Sabrina Ionescu couldn’t save the New York Liberty in Game 4, and on Sunday, there will be a thrilling Game 5 in Brooklyn.
Oh, my goodness. The Lynx-Liberty series probably has had everyone pacing in their living rooms at some point. It was more of the same on Friday, as the whole game was a BATTLE. Neither team could entirely pull away and build a cushion because there were 14 lead changes and 13 ties. YES. FOURTEEN LEAD CHANGES AND 13 TIES. WHAT?!
The game’s final minute was absolute chaos, and New York was so close to winning a championship. But a late foul on Bridget Carleton doomed them, putting the Lynx up by two and leaving it up to Sabrina Ionescu to bring it all home — again.*BIG GULP* Sabrina tried her hardest, but stifling defense by Minnesota made her 3-point shot from the far side logo INCHES short of going in. OUCH, NEW YORK.
Good morning, folks. Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today. We appreciate you stopping by.
Please tell me you saw Sabrina Ionescu’s Game 3 clinching shot against the Lynx on Wednesday. What an incredible series this has been. These teams are delivering each other blow after blow after blow, but none was greater than the 3-point bomb Sab dropped on the Lynx to finish that one off. As our Meghan Hall writes, it was so filthy. Not bad for an All-WNBA second-teamer, huh?
This game-winner wasn’t just an incredible shot. I’d argue it’s one of the greatest we’ve ever seen. Period.
Now, I know that probably sounds like a lot. We’ve seen a ton of game-winners in the history of both the WNBA and the NBA. A lot of them have been pretty incredible. But let me explain what puts this one up there for me.
Specifically, there are three things.
First is the distance. A 28-foot 3-pointer to win the game is an incredible feat no matter how you slice it.
But it’s still pretty darn far. And considering that she did it while shaking an excellent defender off her in Kayla McBride, I’d argue that it was a pretty difficult one even when you put the distance aside. Add on the distance and we’re talking stuff of legend here.
Second is the circumstance. Remember, New York was down by 15 points at one point in this game. Breanna Stewart had to implore her team not to let this one slip away. The Liberty didn’t take a second lead until the waning moments of the fourth quarter.
To put it simply, New York wasn’t supposed to win this. That shot was a punctuation point for what is now the third-largest comeback win in league history. That means something, folks. If the Liberty win this series, this is the moment we’ll all come back to.
Third is the moment. Game 3. The clock is winding down. Breanna Stewart was been cooking, but Napheesa Collier defended her excellently in the last couple of minutes of the game. It was no longer in Stewart’s hands.
Enter Sabrina, who, quite frankly, had been awful up until about a minute left to play.
It didn’t matter. Her teammates trusted her to get a look. That’s what she did. And she ended the with it.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHOTS IN LIBERTY FINALS HISTORY FROM SABRINA IONESCU 😱🔥
It just doesn’t get any better than this, man. This is championship basketball at its finest. What a shot.
Welcome back, Lonzo Ball
(Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Lonzo Ball is playing NBA basketball again for the first time in over two years.
He made his preseason debut with the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday after being out due to a left knee injury. Ball has had several procedures done over the last 33 months to his knee, including a cartilage and meniscus transplant. All of that to get back to this moment.
Despite it all, it doesn’t look like he’s skipped a beat. He scored 10 points off the bench for the Bulls to go along with one rebound, one assist, one steal and one block in 15 minutes. He impacted the game across the stat sheet.
Lonzo Ball coming back was an awesome story on its own. But if he can come back and still be an awesome player for the Bulls despite all he’s been through, that’ll make the story even better.
We’re rooting for you, Zo. Go get ’em.
Loophole closed
Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Dan Lanning has been (kind of?) taking credit for the 12-men on-the-field penalty that essentially sealed Oregon’s win against Ohio State last Saturday.
You’ve surely heard enough about this by now, but the idea was basically that Lanning intentionally sent a 12th man on the field with 10 seconds left in the game to ensure a stop against Ohio State before being penalized and running the clock down a bit. After the penalty, there were only six seconds left on the clock. So Oregon could run its regular defense and Ohio State could only run one more play.
But intentionality doesn’t matter anymore. It won’t happen again.
The NCAA has officially closed the loophole that was exploited here. Michelle Martinelli has more detail in her story here. This is what the NCAA had to say:
“After the Two-Minute Timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap. The game clock will then restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”
Now, when something like that happens, the clock will reset if the offended team wants it to be. Ohio State would still have the opportunity to run a couple of plays and take the penalty yardage, too.
Shoutout to Dan Lanning. His false ingenuity here just ruined it for defenses everywhere.
Quick hits: Angel Reese puts the WNBA on blast … Is the NBA compromised? … and more
The heroic Ionescu basket puts the Liberty within a game of a WNBA title, making it one of the biggest moments in the franchise’s history.
ESPN broadcaster Ryan Ruocco more than understood the assignment during his call of the historic Ionescu 3-pointer, putting all of his emotion into his thrilling broadcast.
Ruocco’s voice might be a little hoarse in the morning, but he deserves so many kudos for this excellent call fans will remember for a long time.
"Ionescu will heeeeaaave… AND HIT!!! AAAAND HIT!!! Sabrina Ionescu with the biggest shot in Liberty history!" – Ryan Ruocco pic.twitter.com/HYuyNb2Lbs
Game 3 of the WNBA Finals was one of the wildest things I’ve watched. It was 100 percent like Game 1, but in reverse. Everything was going the Lynx’s way early, but a stellar 30-point performance from Breanna Stewart, Minnesota’s foul trouble and an injury to Alanna Smith changed things.
New York climbed back in, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and punctuating it with a FILTHY Sabrina Ionescu logo 3-pointer. WHEW. But it seems Sabrina might have felt some sort of way about not making the All-WNBA First team and used it as motivation. Postgame, she clapped back at the snub with a petty but delightful quip, saying, “That was just a great All-WNBA Second Team performance.” MIC DROP.
Sabrina Ionescu: "That was just a great All-WNBA Second Team performance." (Q: @Lindsay_Schnell)
The basketball world was abuzz about Sabrina Ionescu’s Game 3 heroics.
New York Liberty superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu nailed one of the biggest 3-pointers of the season on Wednesday night during Game 3 of the 2024 WNBA Finals.
With just a handful of seconds to go and the game tied at 77, Ionescu threw up a prayer of a logo trey and drained it to stun the hosting Minnesota Lynx fans in attendance.
It’s perhaps the greatest bucket of Ionescu’s historic career, one that got her team within a game of New York’s first WNBA title.
Of course, basketball stars from across the WNBA and NBA were mightily impressed with Ionescu’s late-game heroics.
"Ionescu will heeeeaaave… AND HIT!!! AAAAND HIT!!! Sabrina Ionescu with the biggest shot in Liberty history!" – Ryan Ruocco pic.twitter.com/HYuyNb2Lbs
With ice in her veins, Sabrina Ionescu brought the New York Liberty within one game of a WNBA championship.
Game 3 was like Game 1 of the Liberty-Lynx series, but in reverse. The Lynx were up HUGE — as much as 16 points — when New York kept plugging away. Foul trouble, an Alanna Smith injury, and a massive night from Breanna Stewart (30 points, 11 rebounds, four blocks) allowed the Liberty to withstand several pushes from Minnesota and eventually overcome it late in the fourth quarter.
With the game on the line, Sabrina Ionescu launched a COLOSSAL shot from downtown New York to break the hearts of every Lynx fan everywhere. Ionescu was quiet most of the night, but she NAILED the bucket of her life — a logo 3-point heave — when the Liberty needed it most. I mean, you need to see this shot to believe it. UNREAL.
Sabrina Ionescu used the Oregon football’s win over Ohio State for motivation in her finals series against the Minnesota Lynx.
An athlete like Sabrina Ionescu doesn’t need a lot of motivation to excel at her sport, especially since her New York Liberty are in the WNBA finals.
But watching her favorite college football team, the Oregon Ducks, win a big game like they did on Saturday, didn’t hurt either.
After the Liberty tied the series 1-1 with the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday — a game where Ionescu scored 15 points and five assists in the 80-66 win — she was asked about the Ducks’ win over Ohio State.
“After they won with the way they did, today I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to wear my Oregon shoes’,” she said. “I wanted to embody that tough, gritty win that they pulled off. A lot things didn’t go right for them and they continued to kind of fight and stay together and grind out a really big win and I was, ‘all right and I wanted to bring that energy with me today on the court.'”
Ionescu and the Liberty now travel to Minnesota for Game 3 of the series where they’ll try to take control and get one step closer for their first WNBA championship.
