Breanna Stewart makes WNBA history in carrying sluggish Liberty to win over Dream

There were plenty of moments on Sunday that showed the Liberty are still trying to shake off their woes from Tuesday’s failure to repeat as Commissioner’s Cup winners.

But after a sluggish start, a stagnant performance from Jonquel Jones and an awful shooting afternoon from Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart carried the Liberty to an 81-75 win over the Atlanta Dream at Barclays Center.

Stewart scored 22 points and became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 5,000 points, doing so in 242 games; Diana Taurasi had the previous mark at 243 games.

Jones had a mere five points — only two better than her three free throws on Tuesday against the Lynx. Ionescu had 10, shooting 3-for-17 from the field, including 2-for-11 from deep.

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Stewart propelled the Liberty in the second half after the team shot a brutal 27.8 percent in the first quarter and 30 percent in the second quarter.

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The two-time MVP came alive in the third, making three 3-pointers as the Dream left her open at the top of the key too often. She followed her shots for second-chance points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton had the game-shifting deep shot in the third quarter off a pass from Ionescu, who found her in the corner to get a 44-43 lead – their first since four minutes into the game.

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Atlanta’s Tina Charles and Allisha Gray were beating the Liberty in transition and in the paint, with Charles constantly getting the best of Jones.

The Liberty looked lost.

“When we came back to work, the first day we focused on what we could do better with our spacing against Minnesota, but yesterday it’s all about Atlanta,” head coach Sandy Brondello said ahead of the game. “We showed the clips and made sure to remind them they just beat the second best team in the league. And that’s why I talked about the parity and we can’t look back about how easy it was for us in that last game. They did make a run in that fourth quarter when we relaxed.”

While they eked out a win on Sunday, another slow start capped off what ultimately was a disappointing week.

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