It's a best-of-three, but Liberty want Tuesday's playoff game to be 2 of 2

The Liberty want no part of a trip to the nation’s capital. Uh-uh.

Last Friday, they earned a 90-75 win in Game 1 of their best-of-three WNBA opening-round playoff series against No. 7 Washington in front of a loud, supportive crowd of 8,789 at Barclays Center.

Now the second-seeded Liberty’s desire is to avoid a winner-take-all Game 3 showdown on the road Friday. Or as Jonquel Jones said, “Not to go into a hostile environment in D.C. because they have great fans as well.”

The goal is to close this out in Game 2 on Tuesday night in Brooklyn and move on to the best-of-five semifinals.

“Taking care of our home court,” coach Sandy Brondello said. “The crowd is fantastic. It was so loud. I was trying to do an interview on the TV. I could hardly understand what they were talking about.

“That’s our home-court advantage there. We want to protect our home court. We don’t want to go back to Washington. So we’ll treat it as just another knockout game because that’s how important it is. It’s the playoffs. I don’t have to get them up. They’re already up.”

Sabrina Ionescu sure looked up in Game 1. She scored 29 points and made seven three-pointers, which set a Liberty postseason record.

“Let me not get fined, but I’d say some of those threes were for the refs, with all due respect,” Ionescu said afterward, clearly not pleased with the officiating.

The 6-6 Jones was a force inside with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Betnijah Laney delivered 19 points and eight rebounds.

And so the Liberty won without getting MVP-type scoring from their MVP candidate.

Breanna Stewart shot 4-for-17 and scored only nine points in the regular-season finale when the Liberty lost to Washington, 90-88, at Barclays. She shot 3-for-16 in Game 1 and scored only 10, although she had eight rebounds, four assists and three blocks.

So how good will they be if she tosses in 23? That was her regular-season average, good for second in the WNBA.

“Stewie has been huge for us the entire season,” Jones said. “We want to be there for her, and we want to make sure that obviously in the next game we’re doing the right thing in trying to get her the right looks so she can settle into the game and do what she does best as well, because we’re obviously even that much better when she’s playing well, too.”

Jones also played well defensively in the second half when given the task of trying to contain 6-5 Elena Delle Donne. The two-time MVP scored only three of her 11 points after intermission.

“Our defense is why we are where we are at this time,” Brondello said. “We are a great offensive team, but once our defense took off, it allowed us to get on a winning streak. We know it’s going to be critical as we move forward.”