Sabrina Ionescu Tells The Truth On Viral Olympics Moment With Team USA

Sabrina Ionescu wasn't exactly the star of the show for Team USA during their recent gold medal conquest in the 2024 Paris Olympics. The New York Liberty superstar came off the bench for the star-studded squad, putting up averages of 5.5 points and 3.3 assists in roughly 13 minutes per contest.

Despite her modest numbers, however, Ionescu still bagged a gold medal for herself after the tournament all the same. She did have her moments, too, with perhaps none more memorable than her last-second deep trey against Belgium in the group stage.

With time running down in the fourth quarter and the game already won for Team USA, Ionescu was urged by her teammates to take the shot. The objective was to improve the team's point differential, which is one of the tiebreaker methods that will be used should teams earn the same number of points heading into the knockout stage.

Sabrina gladly obliged.

In a recent appearance on NBC's "Late Night Seth Meyers," Ionescu shared her side of the now-iconic Olympic moment. According to the three-time All-Star, none of it was planned, and it all just came naturally.

"So that was like 27,000 fans that came to support Belgium that game," she said (h/t Grant Young of Women's Fastbreak). "They're 45 minutes away from Lille, where we played. They started booing us from the moment we came down to warm up. Like, it was a whole thing.

"And obviously, with USA Basketball, it's a whole point-differential thing," she continued. "So I kind of like looked at the bench, everyone was telling me to shoot it, and I was like, 'Alright, if you're not going to guard me from I'm shooting it.' And kind of just gave them the little, you know, silencer. It kind of just came. Wasn't planned."

Ionescu's surely going to remember that one for the foreseeable future.

Right now, though, the 26-year-old is dealing with a neck injury that has forced her to sit out two straight games for the Liberty, who are currently first in the WNBA with a 25-4 record. New York's next game is on Saturday against the second-seeded Connecticut Sun, and at this point, her status for that one is up in the air.

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