The Liberty required Breanna Stewart in this particular avatar.
They had to rely on it last year since Stewart’s MVP campaign and the Liberty’s trip to the WNBA Finals happened at the same time.
Additionally, she failed to score in the season opener against the Mystics, managing only eight points despite the team’s victory.
However, Stewart scored 31 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in the Liberty’s 102-66 victory over the Indiana Fever on Thursday, ruining Caitlin Clark’s home debut. This allowed Stewart to implement her strategy to play more aggressively after the disappointing first game.
“Doing whatever I can to put them in the most uncomfortable position that they want to be guarding defensively,” Stewart said to reporters following the game. “But in general, I just wanted to come out more aggressive coming off of last game.”
She scored the first basket with a jumper from the left side of the paint, and Stewart continued to be effective from there, making just three 3-pointers and connecting on just one.
In the opening quarter, she scored eleven points as the Liberty laid the groundwork for a decisive advantage.
With less than four minutes remaining in the second quarter, Stewart’s jumper gave the Liberty a nine-point lead once more. Stewart was aware that, with good execution, the Liberty could get “whatever we want” in transition, as seen by their 16 transition points to Indiana’s 2.
Stewart was frequently the one carrying the offense at times during the first iteration of the Liberty superteam last year.
All of it assisted her in narrowly defeating Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun to win the second MVP of her career.
And following the opener on Thursday, she made a crucial move in her attempt to retain that title.
Vandersloot stated to The Post,”You’re going to have games where you’re only going to have eight points, you’re not really in an offensive flow.” “And then you’re gonna have games like this. I mean, she’s always a threat. That’s what’s special about her, and when she scores like this, she makes it look easy — but it’s not.”
