Liberty drop finale at buzzer to Mystics, their playoff opponent

The fans were instructed to look up to the rafters inside Barclays Center before Sunday’s game. And then the banner was unveiled with the word CHAMPIONS above the Liberty logo and 2023 below it.

This was a commemoration of their first Commissioner’s Cup championship, which they claimed last month with a win at Las Vegas. The team is hoping for another 2023 banner to hang next to it, commemorating their first WNBA championship.

But the Liberty closed the finest regular season in the 27-year history of the franchise with something unusual — a loss.

They trailed Washington by 12 in the fourth, then rallied to pull even. But Brittney Sykes took a lob from Natasha Cloud and hit from 9 feet away at the buzzer, giving the Mystics a 90-88 win and bringing the Liberty’s eight-game winning streak to a sudden halt. 

“I think they get up for us,” coach Sandy Brondello said.

So the Liberty, who got 20 points from Sabrina Ionescu and 19 points and nine rebounds from Jonquel Jones, finished at 32-8 and took the second seed. They won’t have to wait long for another shot at Washington after the regular-season series ended at 2-2.

The best-of-three opening round will tip off for them Friday night at Barclays, and it will be against the seventh-seeded Mystics, who finished at 19-21.

“Washington is a really good team,” said Breanna Stewart, who shot 4-for-17 and scored just nine points. “Obviously, they’ve struggled with a lot of injuries throughout the season. But everyone knows they have great players on their team.”

The Mystics are formidable, and they know it.

“We started the game and we wanted to send a message: You’re going to have to see us all series long,” Cloud said. “You have to go through a really good team still, a team that’s hungry, a team full of dogs.”

This game stood at 88-88 after Stewart tied it, sinking a 6-footer with 21.5 seconds left.

Then Elena Delle Donne went up from 13 feet on the left baseline. Stewart swatted her shot out of bounds — 0.5 left. 

After timeouts by both sides, Cloud inbounded from the baseline to Sykes, who caught the lob in the right side of the lane and released it over Stewart for her team-leading 19th and 20th points.

“I knew that the lob was coming to Sykes, but she made a tough play,” Stewart said.

The Liberty had fallen behind, 69-57, in the third. They countered with a 10-2 run. Stefanie Dolson capped it with a three, cutting Washington’s lead to 71-67 heading for the fourth.

The Mystics opened the final period with a 13-5 run, good for an 84-72 advantage with 6:35 remaining. The Liberty responded with a 16-4 burst to tie it.

But a brilliant regular season didn’t end well for them.

“We accomplished a lot of things, but we’re not satisfied because we haven’t gotten to our end goal,” forward Kayla Thornton said. “Once we do that, all will be said and done.”