Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
This league has always been able to stand
on what we thought was right.
We had to stand, first of all, to be able to play.
As women, in America, to have a league, we had to stand
so people know that we belong.
Don't waste the day.
Play it like this was our last game,
how hard will we play, y'all?
So let's go out there, let's play our ass off
and let's go win this fucking game for each other.
We're all we got, right here, y'all.
Liberty 3 on three.
- 1, 2, 3. - Liberty!
This is where we belong.
♪ All I really know is that there's nothing to lose ♪
♪ Come 5th five times in a bottle of booze ♪
♪ I bet my goose if I bet a deuce ♪
♪ Still made it through life, can't be helped ♪
♪ So keepin' all the Ritalin that's in my mail ♪
♪ I'm waitin' on permission so said to fail ♪
The top 144 athletes in the world
are playing in the most elite country of basketball.
That's undeniably an excellent product.
♪ When I fall I get back up again ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
These women have a lot to lose,
and they're standing up for what is right.
♪ All I really know ♪
But you have to have a respect for women's sports.
They don't know that that respect as equals,
it's never been there.
♪ I'm living proof I don't fit in your shoes ♪
Why do you think you should have a league?
Why would anyone invest in the WNBA?
How are we going to promote this team?
Who's gonna buy the corn flakes that we're trying to sell?
♪ All I really know ♪
I am an athlete, male or female, I am an athlete,
elite athlete, and you're gonna ask me that question?
If you don't believe in us, why are you here?
That might be the question.
♪ All I really know ♪
We're not out here to sell the body,
I'm not out here to sell my beauty,
I'm out here to freaking sell my talent.
♪ When I fall I get back up again ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ That's all, I'm on top of it ♪
When I was a girl, there was no women to be seen
on television playing sports, except tennis,
and I remember roller derby.
And I couldn't get my hands on a tennis racket,
roller derby just seemed like it was out of reach,
so then I got fixated on the New York Knicks.
And I watched them and I was like,
if maybe I could play for the Knicks someday,
I could be the first woman.
Like, that was the opportunity
to do what I loved, was that small.
The only aspiration you could have
was to want to play in the NBA.
You wanna be like Michael Jordan,
or you wanna be like Larry Bird.
Playing professionally, it was not even in my mind.
I got an opportunity to be an Olympian in 1988.
Putting on a USA uniform was the ultimate,
the most precious moment that I could ever imagine.
And now your thoughts, after that,
have to be, what's next?
And it was to go overseas, playing in Italy.
I had a team from Japan come and visit me
and a contract offer, written on a napkin, to go to Italy.
I played my first six years in Spain.
If I told someone that I was
playing professional basketball,
it was just kinda, it was like, "Oh really,
and you play where?"
Like, "Oh, you, you, you, wow,
I didn't even know that that was possible."
If I said I was a professional basketball player back
in 88, 89, 90, they were like,
"What are you talking about, it does not exist?"
The absolute peak was to play for an Olympic team,
and that was that.
USA all the way!
It's official, the United States
has the best women's basketball team in the world.
Then, 1996, was the year of the female
at those Olympic games.
Softball, soccer, basketball,
women were just capturing people's imaginations.
Our '96 Olympic team, they showed the world
that we're capable of playing the game of basketball
at a tremendously high level, and exciting basketball.
Yeah!
There's a possibility that we don't
have to go overseas to play.
We started hearing some rumblings,
maybe they were thinking about starting
a professional league.
They win the gold medal in Atlanta,
and then we start revealing our plans.
We started announcing network deals.
NBC, Lifetime, ESPN were our three launch partners.
We started making sponsor announcements.
And I remember being at an NBA owners meeting
in October of '96, terrified,
it was just so dramatic and so exciting.
And I am pleased to announce that
the Board of Governors approved the concept
of the NBA establishing
the Women's National Basketball Association.
The league at the highest levels understood
that there was a lane
for a professional women's basketball league.
It's the NBA, anything that they put their hands on,
they weren't gonna allow it to fail.
Ball, ball, ball.
Double it.
Now that's your shot.
Yeah.
Good job, way the go, I like that.
Rebecca Lobo and Sheryl Swoopes have become
the first players to sign contracts to play in the WNBA.
Nice, yeah, nice.
In those early days,
it was me and Cheryl and Lisa everywhere.
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
You see us and wearing these like blue shorts
and blue pinnies that say WNBA,
because we hadn't been assigned to a team yet.
When NBA Entertainment brought to us
that first spot, launch spot,
with Lisa and Cheryl and Rebecca
were coming out of that smoke-filled tunnel,
and strategic camera shots of the names
that were embroidered on their duffle bags,
made sure that the viewer knew
who we were talking about here.
We were the faces of the league,
because we're the only three players
who had signed to play for the league.
We started to announce our plans
with respect to our teams.
Welcome to the player selection
for the WNBA's inaugural season.
We announced our first eight locations,
of course including the Liberty.
Now it's important for us to continue to carry that torch
and light other people's imagination about the game.
It's great for the younger girls
who can dream and know that they have a vehicle
to make those dreams come true now with the women's NBA,
and that they can one day play professional here.
I was in France and I get a phone call
and said that I had been allocated to play
with the New York Liberty.
It took me about two, three seconds
and then changed, New York City.
Holy heck.
I come from a town of 400 people
and now I'm going to New York City.
I'd already played 10 years, my dream is to play
in New York City, my dream is to play
for the New York Liberty.
Either I'm gonna play in New York, or I'm not gonna play.
The first thing I'd learned when I came to Liberty
is that you better be tough and you better have thick skin.
You know what you gotta bring,
you know the excitement that you better play with,
because if not, if you don't have thick skin,
strong shoulders, you can't play here.
Our identity was pretty quickly following one
of our biggest leaders, and that was Teresa Weatherspoon.
She was perfect for New York.
I was a captain alongside Rebecca Lobo.
She said, "I want you to know,
everyone always talking about it's Rebecca Lobo's team,
it's your team."
No, B, it's our team!
Welcome to the Great Western Forum
in Los Angeles, the debut of the Woman's NBA,
between the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks.
So we are moments away and from this historic occasion.
It's time to now compete.
Us and LA, you couldn't have had it any other way.
East Coast versus West Coast.
There is so much excitement,
you almost feel like you're playing.
Everybody is so fired up about this game.
Do or die moment.
Let's show 'em what we're made of.
It's time to step in that jumper circle
and I was like, "Here we go,
we're get ready to make history,
we're getting ready to make history." And then...
Here's the tip.
And the Sparks control.
Opportunity's inside.
So they made these shots, but Penny Toler
doesn't get one at the other end
and now it's back to the Liberty.
Teresa Weatherspoon.
Blocked by Lisa Leslie.
And that woke up the crowd here at the Forum.
Lisa Leslie has been promoting
the Sparks getting ready for the season.
Teresa Weatherspoon just turned the jets on.
And Lobo, from the corner.
It's good. A three-pointer for Rebecca Lobo.
Lisa Leslie bank's one in.
Weatherspoon pushes it ahead.
To Johnson.
Vickie Johnson lays it in.
And who won?
We did. East Coast.
It wasn't an easy game.
And that would do it,
here at the Great Western Forum.
It's the New York Liberty over the LA Sparks,
and the first game for the Woman's NBA.
This game had great meaning,
not just the Liberty or the sparks, but for our league.
All of us, because we lived most
of our lives without a WNBA.
Really, it took great responsibility,
that we needed to do everything we could
to make sure it wasn't gonna be one year and done,
or two years and done, or five years and done,
like we have to ensure that this league is around
for the long haul.
It's just 26%.
Does anybody have any idea what that number?
26% is what 538 gave us chances
to even make the playoffs.
26%, and we have a less than 1% chance
of going to the finals and winning.
And this is what people think of us.
Everyone's probably looking at the Liberty.
You know, last year, New York Liberty was in last place,
having only won two games out of 22.
But this isn't the same New York Liberty team.
When we first got here it was like...
I dunno how to explain it, it was definitely weird.
The team was new.
Most teams, they bring in everybody
and just bring in one rookie,
but with us, everybody was new.
It's particularly tough if you have a really new team,
a team that's still young, a team that's coming off
of a not great season.
There's lots of expectations that we have,
there's lots of anticipation for it.
We know what we look like, nobody else does.
And we were all trying to figure out who each other were,
what they did, who was the leader.
B walked in, and she made it known
that she was the leader, though.
I just wanna make that clear.
It was never a question if B was the leader,
it was a question of who else was goin' lead with her?
The last year, I went from being waived,
right before the season, to actually becoming
the most improved player in the WNBA.
Pursenal gives it back
to Laney and the Dream.
And inside the arc, nails another jumper.
Laney powers it in.
Before the season started, I was in different interviews
and one of the things that continuously came up
was, "Was last year a fluke?
The year before and above, was it just luck?
It was a little insulting.
No, this is who I am, this is what I'm capable of.
Her talent can speak for itself.
She's just getting started and she's coming to her own.
Betnijah is New York gospel.
This is something.
Lift your chin up, slight bend down.
Hold on.
Perfect. I do bring that better
in experience, so to just continue
to push myself, push everyone else,
just be a voice, lead by example,
and just be whatever it is that the team needs me to be.
I know I'm happy.
For the first time in franchise history,
we had the number one draft pick.
Everyone knew who the, supposed, number one pick
was going to be.
Oh, you got her in it.
Sabrina Ionescu, she was so anticipated.
Number one play of the week,
who else, Sabrina Ionescu.
Ionescu with four, step-back three.
Swishes the throw!
Sabrina Ionescu, NCAA
all-time leader in points, assist
and three-point field goals.
26 triple-doubles' the record
for female or male in NCAA history.
The New York Liberty select Sabrina Ionescu.
You played for the New York Liberty.
You're playing in New York City,
do you feel a lotta pressure coming to New York,
especially being a number one pick?
I get asked it in absolutely every single interview.
The more people are talking about how we're playing
in games, it's just bringing awareness to our sport.
Last year, in her second game ever as a WNBA player,
she kinda flipped a switch.
And I think she had 33 points,
seven rebounds, seven assists.
Whoa, she just took over the game.
Wan back in it.
And she got hurt in the very next game.
Ionescu has gone down.
I think it was Betnijah that hurt her.
Sabrina Ionescu suffered
a brutal-looking ankle injury.
LeBron James tweeted, "Get healthy as soon as possible."
A lot of people talk about, "Oh, she's struggling,
she's not living up to the expectation.",
or, "She's a bust."
No one really talks about what athletes actually
have to go through coming back from injury
and playing in the best league in the world.
Oh, big shot!
That's all I needed,
I need the garbage push down.
It's really exciting to be a part of a team
that's really gonna change New York basketball.
Once the Liberty made the selection of Sabrina Ionescu,
it was clear this was a franchise building
around Sabrina, and rightly so.
But the question comes as you head into 2021,
who is the right player to pick to build around her?
Scene Michaela Onyenwere, take one, mark.
That was pretty good.
You hear her say the last name?
This is how you say my last name; Onyenwere.
These people were at me with stuff like,
"They said your name wrong the whole time."
And I'm like, it's okay, it happens.
I am Nigerian.
My dad was an athlete, he competed in the Olympics.
Education was really important in my house,
but it was also like,
"We understand you have this other passion."
With the six pick, in the 2021 WNBA draft,
the New York Liberty select Michaela Onyenwere from UCLA.
There was a moment with my grandma, she went viral.
So that was cool too.
Hi grandma. Grandma's got it.
Go grandma.
Everybody loves her, and everybody's always asking,
"How's your grandma, where's grandma?"
I love that fire of hers.
She' just been somebody who's supported me.
I'm just grateful that she's my grandma.
She everybody grandma at this point.
I got drafted, and then three days later I was in New York.
I remember I was so nervous.
We play in Barclays, where the NBA guys play.
The 25th season of the WNBA,
and one of its cornerstone franchises begins tonight
in Brooklyn at Barclays Center.
It's the Liberty, in their season opener
against the Indiana Fever.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome the New York Liberty!
It's palpable the excitement
here in the arena, Jules.
Not only for the start of the 25th season
of the W, but also the future of this franchise.
New York!
But I didn't really think I was gonna be starting,
and so that was crazy for me.
And now, let's play ball
♪ Bam, I'm coning in fast ♪
♪ First place, you're coming in last ♪
Inside, tries to get it inside
to Michaela, but it's broken up.
Game one, we just need to be in this game,
we need to be battling, we need to be competing.
♪ First place, you're coming in last ♪
♪ I'm hittin' that, hittin' that gas ♪
Sami, throw me the ball.
This is the first offensive possession.
Michaela Onyenwere pulls
from three and connects.
And it went in, and I was like, okay.
♪ We causing a commotion ♪
♪ Iciest bitch in the whole damm land ♪
Oh, great look inside
to Onyenwere, from Whitcomb.
♪ You don't like me, but you on my 'Gram ♪
♪ How you look? How you look? ♪
We started off really strong.
Nijah Laney, from downtown.
Hey, Laney!
The game was back and forth.
It was actually a really good first game.
That's going to Laney, she's goes baseline
three lane and lays it in.
♪ I'm hittin' that, hittin' that ass ♪
♪ I'm fine, I'm coming in fast ♪
♪ First place, coming in last ♪
♪ I'm hittin' that, hittin' that gas ♪
They made big play after big play.
Ionescu connects on her first game
of the season.
She's back from her ankle injury.
She is back.
And a lotta people didn't think
that we'd be able to do that.
They thought that we looked the same way
that we did last year, with the two wins.
As Betnijah Laney connects.
We're not the same team, we're not the same group.
We're going back and forth and we're taking their best hit
and we're coming back and we're giving them our best.
Nice hook inside by Windy to Shook.
The Liberty seesaw back in front by two.
♪ Locomotion We causing a commotion ♪
21 Points, 11 assists for Sabrina right now.
And I remember looking up and it being tied,
and I'm like, I do not feel like going into overtime.
87-87.
Who will blink first, Jaz Jones to Robinson.
Kelsey Mitchell.
It's a wide, it's a walk on Mitchell.
The liberty will have a chance to win this game.
Dustin was drawing up a play and was like,
"Do you wanna shoot?", and I was like,
yeah, I wanna shoot it.
Ball inbound to Kylee Shook.
Four seconds left.
Ionescu, a long three for the win,
and she gets it!
Sabrina Ionescu at the buzzer.
With four seconds left.
Sabrina Ionescu from downtown,
and the Liberty have a three-point lead.
My goodness.
She came up and I just threw it.
I was like, oh my God.
I'm literally on the bench like this.
So when it went in like literally out.
We all went to run out on the court
but there was still time left.
you have to run back to defense,
I was cheering but I was running back.
We are so good.
Tiffany Mitchell for three for the tie.
No good.
We couldn't have scripted that better,
that was perfect.
It's an epic way to start a season,
to set the tone for what we're trying to do.
It worked out perfectly.
That won us the game, and won me our first WNBA game.
What's going through your mind
when you take that last shot there?
I wanted it.
I haven't played in a while, I wanted it for this team,
we grinded out a huge win here.
And just so happy to have fans,
family here in attendance.
And it's just the beginning for us.
Let's go, Liberty!
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
That was a great game.
I'm the grandma that danced on the ESPN.
We're an original team.
If you look at our roster, a good majority
of our players weren't even born
when the WNBA was incepted in 1997.
I was born in 1997, I think, did it start in 19...
I don't know.
Either, I wasn't born yet,
or it was the exact year that I was born.
I was not aware of the WNBA
when I first started playing basketball.
And then when I did start playing basketball,
when I actually tried to take it a little seriously,
or you start going to camp, then it's like,
"This is a professional woman's basketball player."
And I'm like, oh, they have those.
Good, so I can do this.
The WNBA debuted in New York City today,
and it was a box office smash.
A record breaking crowd of 17,780,
the largest to ever witness a women's professional game.
I love it. I love it.
They were gonna mask half the seats,
but they're gonna sell it out, they said.
You go big!
Everybody gonna be what?
All right!
Come on, baby!
The first game at MSG was incredible.
Now we walking into our own arena.
Now we walking into our place, our home, where we play,
MSG.
This is where everyone wants to play, the mecca.
Game, halftime.
I mean, we were instant rock stars.
That's it, baby.
Give it everything you have, leave it all right here.
All right here, this time.
On three.
Liberty, 1, 2, 3. Liberty!
Weatherspoon to Lobo!
And Lobo with the left hand.
And a great pass by Teresa Weatherspoon.
My strongest memory of that game
was how loud it was.
And the crowd on its feet.
It's a give and go.
From hip through to Lobo.
It was so loud we could not hear each other,
we could not hear our names being announced.
Teresa Weatherspoon drives.
Is she a crowd favorite here or what?
This is about us.
These people are out here about us.
You guys, this is us.
All these fans, from 50 and 60-years-olds
down to little kids, screaming at the top of their lungs.
I love you, Lobo! Win us gold!
We had this pent inside for the last 40 years,
and then finally getting a chance to let it out
and cheer for professional women playing basketball.
It was the first time I felt that people
actually saw me for who I was, as an athlete.
For the first time they could actually see
what it is that I do.
That was the greatest crowd that I've played
before in my whole life.
So you'll remember this
one for a long time?
I'll remember this forever.
I'll cherish this moment forever.
And they're loving it in the Garden.
When I first heard about the WNBA,
it was one of those things where
if you're thinking about going to college
and possibly going overseas, or what kinda career you were
gonna have after college.
And then it just switched, whenever the WNBA
was gonna be there, because now you have something
to aspire to.
I wanted to get there.
Those teams with Spoon and Child,
they had the Garden rocking
in how engaged they were with the fans.
Teresa, you're so fab, oh my God, I love you.
It was just so dope back then.
And the school is out.
Tyra Banks would be there.
Go, Liberty!
Gregory Hines would be there.
The Baldwin brothers.
It was just an unbelievable celebrity role.
Spike Lee used to come for a lotta games.
Joan Jett.
Joan Jett is my baby, she was the league.
♪ Love is all around ♪
♪ No need to fake it ♪
I was a very loud, passionate fan.
But I wasn't yelling fuck off, I just yelling, miss it.
Every game she came to she had a voodoo doll
with the other team Jersey on it,
and she sat right courtside.
I had been given a voodoo doll.
That's serious shit.
She doesn't stop pokin' that thing.
♪ Love is all around ♪
♪ No need to fake it ♪
♪ You can have the town ♪
♪ Why don't you take it ♪
♪ You're gonna make it after all ♪
I couldn't ask for a better job,
I get to play a game for a living
and I get to meet people like you everyday.
We had crazy fans, some of the Lib fans,
they got Lib tattoos, they got numbers tattooed on 'em.
It was almost like a dream state, is this for real?
And it was real.
♪ You're gonna make it after all ♪
♪ Ow ♪
To come to Madison Square Garden,
and the number of fans who had come up,
women who may have been in their 50s or 60s,
and they would often grab your hand or grab you by the arm
and just say, "I've been waiting for this moment,
my whole life, I am so happy to be here to support you.
You women have an opportunity
that I wish I had when I was a young girl."
So many of these women, of a different generation,
in some ways were living their dreams
through the opportunities that we were given,
and it was really, really powerful.
It was a cross section,
there was a lot of dads and daughters
and there was a lotta LGBT.
When you go somewhere and you're accepted
and you're loved and you don't have to always worry about
are they gonna like me for who I am,
are they gonna talk about me, you feel accepted.
And we're all in this league
because we found acceptance in a place.
Lesbian women, feminist women,
frustrated old sports women,
Liberty fans, just being themselves at the games,
and they loved us, supported us, bought the tickets,
bought the jerseys and talked about Liberty basketball
as if it was their firstborn child.
And the thanks they got was the camera
would quickly pan away from them
that they would never show this is our fan.
The way that they looked, cut their hair, lack of makeup.
The camera was like, "Ooh, that's not what we wanna see."
There were a number of teams at the beginning
who were concerned that they had
so many gay fans coming in to watch games.
There was a fear that it was gonna drive off the families,
and that was what they were banking on going forward,
was that families were gonna come watch these games.
And families meant?
The heteronormative families,
as opposed to just families.
If your aim, from the start, if your input is
to pursue the NBA kind of fan,
and to be thinking in terms of the male gays,
the outcomes are exactly what you would expect
in terms of style, in terms of who is pushed to the front.
Welcome to the ball, Cinderella.
The league didn't know how to market these women.
The league is predominantly black women,
and then looking at gay people.
They didn't know how to market
these players, authentically, as they are.
Let's sell this to Middle America.
What's palatable, what's acceptable,
and that, historically, has been putting on
the lipstick and the dress, putting forth our most feminine,
our most, "family value" players.
The bravest person I know,
during that time, is Sue Wicks.
No reporter, no beat reporter
has ever asked me if I am a lesbian.
The question has never come up.
So I'm doing an interview and he's like,
"My editors is really pushing me to ask this question,
I'm so sorry.
Are you a lesbian?"
And I was like, yes.
She said it. This is who I am.
You love me, or you don't, no in between.
There was a backlash from that.
And being so used to people loving you
and being so proud of you, to they don't talk to you
or walk away, it was sad, very sad.
It was a tightly structured script
that those women had to walk that first couple of years.
It changed.
The first pick in the 2013 WNBA draft,
the Phoenix Mercury select Brittney Griner.
When Britney Griner came into the league,
her very existence, at 6'9",
she came out during her draft week,
before she'd even signed her contract,
and that was considered huge.
Because, in the past, people would be afraid
that, "Oh, I'm gonna ruin my chance."
With sports I have a lot of media attention
and a lot of spotlight on me,
and I'm able to use that for something
that's close to my heart, that's close to me.
Just recently, I came out to the public,
I've been out since about the 9th grade.
Came out to my mom first.
When she came out, my father called me
'cause basketball's our thing and he loves her.
And he said, "She didn't ask to be born how she's born,
she was just born."
And, in my mind, I was like, if he can love her,
maybe he can love his actual daughter, you know?
And so, tattooed on my arm is the date
that I came out to my family.
That's beautiful, they're able to just be who they are.
Be who you are, that's that's all you know how to do,
is to just be who you are.
And so it took a little bit of time to get there
It took time for the league to,
instead of being afraid of what that might mean
for marketing or for ticket sales,
to embrace that community.
But I think the WNBA got there a lot sooner
than a lot of other people did.
Hey, Jordan.
Oh my God, you have gotta look at this onesie.
Baby Jordan.
Kate, my wife, and I, decided to want to have a baby.
Hey, Nashie. Hey, baba.
Everyone's been really great, honestly,
and I think part of that is I have a really cute baby,
so that's the icebreaker, you know?
Nothing else, we just talk about Nash and I just show Nash.
Oh yes. Oh, don't be shy.
Let's go get our little Liberty onesie on.
Being a mom, it gives you new perspective on life,
on everything, why you do things.
Nash is my why, in terms of I wanna be a role model for him,
I want to be someone that he can look up to,
someone that he can draw inspiration from.
Let him play with his little DJ deck.
There you go. All right.
Liberty fans, please bring your attention
to the end wall video boards,
to wish the following fans a happy birthday.
I've never been the most talented at anything,
but I've always sought to be the hardest worker
in the room, though, because I think
that a team always needs that person,
there's always a spot for someone
that's willing to outwork someone,
put in the work, put in the time.
Whitcomb saves it.
I don't think I'm good enough,
I've never thought I was good enough,
so I'm always trying to prove that I am.
Eyes up, finds Whitcomb.
You bet! Down on three.
And part of that means, show up every day
and you work harder than everybody else.
You guys see the blue in my hair?
Y'all see that?
Ooh, they weren't ready for that.
This is the part none of them understand, though.
Why do you have to do your face for a game?
Don't question me.
This is the biggest decision, you guys,
This one's are longer and thicker.
These, I feel like are too thin at the end.
It's okay, we're gonna just pick these.
Go big or go home.
This makes me laugh,
'cause this is not something you think
you would see getting ready for a game.
I'm gonna start wearing my lashes like this,
just one on one eye.
The difference between the people
that have been in the league,
and the newer ones coming in,
is that, I think, they're not focused,
they're just worried about social media, they're on TikTok.
But at the same time, how do you think people are seeing us?
And it's like, we're females out there,
so use your, and I'm sorry, sex appeal.
You have to use that,
it's bringing people to the TV screen,
it's paying tickets, it's doing all the stuff.
I also wanna put out there the shoes on sale for $12,
Who would put these on sale, ever?
Nobody.
Yeah!
Take a picture.
I'm a huge fan of social media, clearly,
but not because I was just taking pictures,
but because it does bring a different kind of audience.
It'll be people under my pictures like,
"Oh, they're play in WNBA.", or,
"Oh, they play basketball.", but they saw you first.
And I feel like you have to be able to sell yourself
before someone can just sit and watch your games.
It's so different now, we didn't have social media,
we didn't have the things that these young players
have now to grow their brand.
The beauty of social media is that
all of these women have a direct voice
and a direct platform to their fans.
Hey!
You've got a ton of WNBA players who
have a huge platform now,
when they can put out whatever they want.
Now you can have a generation that's like...
I see Sabrina, who can be the next face of the league,
or Michaela, with her African roots,
I identify with her.
Or Didi, even her hair and her personality,
I can identify with that.
So I can aspire to be them.
Hey, you guys, it's Didi Richards here,
former Lady Bear, today I'm entering the WNBA draft.
So now I'm eating, trying not to mess up my lipstick, and
after that, I have to be there in 30 minutes, right there.
New York Liberty have selected Didi Richards
out of Dallas.
Didi, Shaq here.
I had some interview with Shaq.
You can come say hi.
And my mom held the camera.
- What's up? - Hey, mom.
Shaq went crazy.
I got a new website called damnyourmamafine.com.
It literally stirred up the sports world for a month or so.
It's Shaq, I feel like it's something he does.
It fit him, so I was just like, okay.
Didi Richards, number 2, Baylor University.
Alright.
I played basketball at Baylor.
And I was going in to go get an interception,
I was knocked out.
I don't remember anything, until I see the paramedic.
He's just like, "Didi, Didi, can you hear me?"
Can you hear me?
He was like, "Can you respond, can you shake your head?"
I'm shaking my head.
And he was like, "Can you get up?"
And I immediately started crying,
because I really cannot feel my legs.
I'm like, Alex, I can't, I can't feel my legs.
The doctor came in there, asking me,
"Do you feel this?"
It was a safety pin, he was poking me so hard
that I started bleeding.
He was like, "You can't, you can't feel that?"
And I'm like, no, I cannot feel that.
It was a moment of shock for everybody.
You're basically paralyzed with no answers
as to why you are.
What's your goal?
To touch the wall and come back.
That feeling scared me.
Move your feet. Move.
It was a lot of anger towards basketball.
Yay, she touched the wall!
But also a lot of regret that I didn't
take advantage of basketball.
So it was like, I'm going get back on the court.
That's four-ply.
It took a huge toll on me mentally.
That time you realize that anything
that you were doing can be taken from you, literally,
in a blink of an eye.
This is somebody that was paralyzed,
then somebody that comes back from that injury.
So you know that she loves this game.
She's had so many opportunities to just stop,
and she doesn't stop.
You look nice.
Come on, stop playin'.
No way, she came this hard?
I've never been a part of a team
that all genuinely likes each other.
The whole team, we all gel together.
We click like we sisters, we argue like we sisters too.
Know why you're walking, like you got
monies.
Let me get two bacon, egg and cheese
on the bagel with jelly on it.
Regardless if we were winning or losing,
we just started to figure each other out
a little bit more because we were able to play together.
And that's the way it ends,
Sabrina Ionescu grabs another board.
Victory for the now 4 in 1 New York Liberty.
Liberty win this 88-81.
A 5 in 1 start with their best start since 2007.
We needed this group to be really, really tight.
Every game is gonna be a battle.
Whoo-hoo-hoo.
Wait.
Garage. Smart crew.
Go ahead and get the princess, the drama queen.
Okay.
Yes! Yes!
In working. Yes!
Aah, you are a lot, Jazmine.
And we started off incredibly well,
right out of the gates, there's a lotta success.
And then, as the season went on,
there's a regression to the mean, if you will,
and the season evened out in terms of our record.
This is the picture time.
We've come down from the high of a win streak,
and now it's like every game is just a real dog fight.
How you gel, you know, how do you change a young team
into a championship team and have that mentality
to go far in the playoffs.
Number 44, Betnijah Laney!
Number 12, Michaela Onyenwere!
Number 32, Sami Whitcomb!
And at guard number 20, Sabrina Ionescu!
Today it's the Washington Mystics taking
on the New York Liberty.
These teams are only separated by a half a game.
And we are underway.
Ms. Mitchell cans a three, her second bucket of the day.
Corner jumper for three.
Layin by Wiese.
Charles, up top, great ball movement.
That's Zellous, from the corner, she sticks the three.
Can Gray can't get it off.
She does, but it won't fall.
So we have completed one half of play
here at the Barclay Center,
where the Washington Mystics have a 51-33 lead.
We get in here at halftime, we're losing about 20,
it's like, what?
Walt asks, "What the hell do we need to do
to make y'all play better?"
And I tell you, it was dead silent in this locker room.
No cameras in the locker room.
So Walt got pissed.
He was like, "All right, good fucking talk.",
and just walked out.
Next thing I know we get out on that court.
Richards hit the floor hard.
I'm looking at Didi and thinking,
she's tough, but she's down.
Knowing her story, her comeback story,
and she wasn't moving at first.
So I was like, fuck, this is scary.
So I'm standing there, and there like,
"All right, you all go, you all go."
I wasn't moving, I was standing next to my dog,
making sure she was straight.
She got up and then she went back down,
and I was like, oh, shit.
And then she got up again and she was able
to walk off a little bit on her own.
That feeling scared me,
and I knew I just never wanted to go back
to where I was in October.
I'm not going back to that walker or that wheelchair.
So knowing she had just went down,
now I gotta bring the energy that she would bring,
now I gotta double that.
Laney for Shook, and she can't convert
the easy layup, and then straight into the crowd
is Jazmine Jones as she does a 360 dive into the front row.
And she's okay, getting a great ovation.
♪ It was the best of times ♪
♪ It was the worst of times ♪
That also set the tone.
It's like, "Okay, if Jaz is gonna do that,
and you play with that intensity.
Jones for three.
I knew that was going in.
We all have to.
There's not gonna be a ball that we're not gonna dive on.
The deflection by Onyenwere.
There's not gonna be a defensive effort
that we're not gonna capitalize on.
♪ Heart so dark they turn to clean ♪
♪ So clean, so clean ♪
foul.
That as New York continues to surge back,
and Jazmine Jones, my goodness,
has she taken a beating today.
We're all in this, we're trying to win this game.
♪ You were my bitter rival but I need your full survival ♪
We needed to win that game.
♪ It was the best of times ♪
Off the dribble drive.
Ionescu gets hers.
She's got 12.
And it's a two-point game.
We're in 4th quarter, and we just turned it up.
♪ Somehow, somehow ♪
♪ Lay a hand on me ♪
♪ Lay a hand on you ♪
♪ Lay a hand on me Lay a hand ♪
Ionescu shoots it.
We flipped a switch and we finally woke up
and decide to play basketball.
♪ You are my bitter rival ♪
♪ But I need your full survival ♪
♪ You are my bitter rival ♪
Ionescu, needs help,
gets it to Gray. Down low. And brings it home!
The Liberty jump on top by one.
First of two.
It's good.
♪ But I need your full survival ♪
And Laney makes it a three-point game.
And the Mystics will use their final time-out.
We've gotta guard the three-point line.
That's the most important part,
no threes and no fouls.
If they get to the rim, they get to the rim.
Stay with your man.
Oh my God, what's that?
- Liberty, 1, 2, 3. - Liberty!
Looking for help, they have no time-outs,
they gotta get it in.
They do, and there's the heat,
and Mitchell is way off the mark.
As the Liberty play some terrific defense
in the closing moments, and they come back
and rally from being 19 down in the 2nd quarter,
to knock off the Mystics 82-79.
They're the team that we need to beat,
and when we finish like that we're fighting to the end,
and we figure that shit out.
No matter how much we're dealt,
we're in the perfect spot!
Here we go!
And we had a rebounding margin of plus five.
I don't even know how we did that.
Do I have to be PG?
- No, absolutely not. - okay.
There was some fucking terrible calls.
Jaz Jones.
Jaz, in 21 minutes, most of them in the 2nd half,
because we couldn't take you off the floor
'cause you were playing so damn well.
Four of nine from the field,
two of three from three.
Why can't y'all play 1st half like we did the 2nd half?
Then there wouldn't have been a blow out.
Certain players really propel us some games,
tonight, for me, it was Jaz.
The way you came in, how aggressive you were
and the energy you brought and everything that you brought,
I really think that's why we won.
'Cause you got on your feet!
'Cause you got onto your feet.
Jazmine Jones was great.
And Sabrina Ionescu was amazing.
Yeah, I loved it.
Jones is already my favorite player.
Yeah.
I'm Jones, until I die now.
- Yeah? - Number 4.
I'm gonna get a number 4 tattoo on my back.
Nice meeting ya'll. You want to sign the jersey?
You want me to sigh the jersey?
Thank you.
He's so cute.
Say thank you.
Give it back now.
The fans in the early years were beyond expectation.
My first two or three years
we were averaging 18,000 and lots of sellouts.
Then it went to 15.
It was like the new shiny toy,
but pop culture didn't wanna keep holding on,
and then it wasn't new and shiny anymore.
We saw attendance dropping significantly,
all the way down to its low point in the mid 2010s.
Every decline is treated as a proof
that the concept doesn't work.
The WNBA attendance, not good.
The WNBA ratings, not good.
The WNBA salaries, not good.
It's not working, because you, the consumer, don't want it.
The WNBA is not a thing.
I'm sorry, it's never going to be a thing,
you can't make fetch happen,
it's just never going to be a thing.
I think it was an easy thing for misogynists
to jump on early on, because even before they saw a game
there were headlines like, "Oh, women's league,
it's no slam dunk."
And at the top of the 2nd half it's 16-9.
These gals sure do make it look difficult.
But is having this minor skill
worth being so unattractive?
That's for the fan to decide.
Yay.
The league was seen as failing.
The owners of the time were not willing to invest
to keep things going.
Maybe the kindest version of how owners
might have been feeling at that time
was simply to say that there was no model,
that we did not have
a successful professional women's sports league
in this country.
But another way of thinking about it is
that while in men's sports, again and again,
investment comes with the idea
that this is a long-term proposition.
So many owners, especially early owners
in the WNBA, treated it as dollar in dollar out
from the get go.
Mr. Dolan had owned a WNBA team longer
than any NBA owner had, but after the 2017 season
it was decided that the team would
be relocated to a new venue.
The Liberty will be coming
to the Westchester County Center.
The 2000-seat center is used
to hosting high school sports competitions,
but now the New York Liberty will be here.
When you take a team that played in Madison Square Garden
and you put it in the Westchester County Center,
you are saying to the fan base we don't care.
It's a huge message.
I remember Tina Charles picking up a mop
and doing the floor.
It was wild.
Teams were coming in unimpressed.
There was a drippy roof whenever it rained,
it was misty in the court, it was small,
it was like an auditorium.
It wasn't acceptable, not for elite athletes.
These are Olympians stepping on the floor,
these are the best of the best stepping on the floor.
And that venue that wasn't really primed
for professional sports, quite frankly.
We lost a significant amount
of fans due to geography.
If you are putting the games in a closet
that nobody can get to, you're conveying
to potential fans that this is not a valuable property
and that you don't care about it.
And people hear that.
Up, out, heel up, down.
How are we feeling?
It's just the age catching up to me,
I came before a girl-
Don't say that. Don't say that.
You're calling the old girl here Michaela.
I know, I'm talking about oh you close to retirement.
Exactly.
Something we wanted to bring in was young veterans,
players with winning experience,
players whose skillsets fit us,
and then players whose personalities
would fit our culture and would fit who else we had here.
I changed it, this is my logo.
Oh, is this your logo?
Yeah, this. That's my logo now.
I love the lightning bolt.
I know, that's why they call me Flash,
for a reason, girl.
So bringing in Tash was essential.
I got a camera grew following me, you might see 'em.
It's like, okay, now we can be
in competitive basketball games
and we can teach our young players how to win those games.
It's nice outside, though.
I might literally sit on the rooftop probably today.
We have a defensive anchor.
We have somebody that is incredibly switchable.
She's capable of being a defensive player of the year.
Natasha Howard, this time a three.
She's capable of being an MVP.
Howard, what a feat!
Unfortunately, due to the overseas season,
she had to report to us late.
And then when we got her, it was really exciting.
Seven minutes to go.
Uh-oh, and we see Howard on the floor,
that does not look good.
And we had her for a couple of games,
and then we lost her to an MCL injury.
I feel like it was a sign from God.
Time for you to actually relax your body
'cause it was back-to-back.
Coming on a 16, 12-hour flight and then playing.
It was just a lot on my body too,
'cause I played a lot overseas, so.
We haven't had Tash, really for any of the season.
And so, now that she's back, this next 11 games,
we have a really good chance to make the playoffs.
Everybody doubted us, like,
"Oh, is New York gonna be good this year"?
Even though I wasn't playin',
we still did a good job for the 1st half of the season.
So and I think we're gonna do a great job
in the 2nd half of the season,
they include the 11 games that we have.
82-69, a 13-point win
for the Fever tonight.
Connecticut getting the victory here,
71-54, the final.
Our nerves, our youth, our inexperience
really showed up in those moments.
As we take a look to
the Liberty bench there, not happy over there.
The final score will be 99-83.
You do learn a lot more sometimes from your losses.
You do learn a lot more from the adversity.
Liberty are out of timeouts.
To Sabrina Ionescu.
Blocked by Brittney Sykes.
At the horn.
So for me, it's not for nothing,
but we have to learn from it.
Everything's on the line for your season.
Liberty caught sleeping,
and a top from Brittney Griner.
Taurasi, left hand.
Yeah.
Phoenix, certainly been the aggressive team
in the early going.
Liberty gotta find their way and dig in.
Smith not slowing down at all.
Mercury went on a 17-0 run to end the game.
Final score, the Mercury 106, the Liberty 79.
Everything is slipping away,
and the Liberty has the opportunity
to control their own destiny.
So they still have a chance
to remain in the playoff contention.
But we're gonna have to win a couple games.
I love you guys...
That was disappointing.
Our effort was really disappointing.
I feel like we just live comfortable.
Even in practice, shoot around, games.
It's like, we gotta go take this, play fucking hard,
play your ass off every game.
When you leave this locker room,
you have to look at yourself in the mirror
and be like, "Did I give everything that I had?"
They whooped our ass!
They made it tough as fuck for us to do anything.
We can beat that, but we had to make that our identity.
And everybody has to be there.
We all gotta come out and say, "You know what, fuck them.
I'm gonna fight, it's just us."
And the thing that's so frustrating
is we should have learned this lesson games ago.
But then we just got fucking pumped again by LA.
Last game, and we didn't learn the lesson.
At what point do we learn the lesson?
Individually, and collectively, we have to decide
how bad do you want it?
Guys, I'm sick of talking, just bring it in.
I'm I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of it.
Sick of saying the same shit.
Liberty, 1, 2, 3. Liberty.
The wear and tear on the body of year-round,
high elite level women's basketball, it's a grind.
You're gonna be in a training camp,
fast forward two weeks, you're in a regular season.
And then that thing ends and you go overseas
and you play that cycle forever,
until you decide that you no longer want
to go overseas, or what have, you wanna stay stateside.
But that is the cycle of life
for a pro basketball player in America.
People don't often know that WNBA players
made the bulk of their money overseas.
But, by and large, that has been the case
for much of the WNBA's history.
To play for Kursk in Russia,
I'm on my second time playing with them.
I played in China for three years.
I played in Israel.
I played in Turkey.
As a women basketball player,
you're literally playing year-round
and you're moving everywhere,
'cause you gotta go kick, you gotta chase the bag.
Most players will go overseas,
and that's where the money is.
The WNBA players have to sacrifice
their bodies year round
to make a living that's comfortable for them.
That's why, women's basketball,
why we have a lot of the injuries that we do have,
it's just like the lack of rest,
the constant pounding from season to season to season.
Season in the WNBA, season overseas.
I played in France for a season, it happened.
I came, and I got here the day before
the first game and played.
Have the salaries be sustainable enough
so that they don't have to go overseas
and sacrifice their body.
It's hard, it's sad, it's lonely.
I'll definitely not go overseas if we get paid more.
After the season is over,
some who didn't get contracts will go overseas.
You might see 'em working in a McDonald's,
in the Burger King, but you play in a professional league.
Some people don't understand
the humiliation that's behind that.
We did.
But we did it for a freaking sacrifice,
a huge sacrifice for the next woman to come.
My mom played basketball.
She had a great career at Cheyney University,
they went on to play for the first NCAA Tournament.
She's played in the final four.
But, for her, they didn't have the WNBA when she came out,
so her professional career started overseas.
That's where her career ended.
So I think, for her, it's just a proud moment
to have me be able to do the things that she couldn't do.
The reason that I wear 44 is because of her.
This isn't my number, this is hers.
This is me paying homage to her.
That's why I do the things that I do,
is because of my mother, because of what she's done.
So it's a good feeling to just be able
to represent her in that way.
The players, I feel, have, especially in recent time,
been outspoken advocates of the changes
they want to see in the world.
Women lead.
If you look at Civil Rights Movement,
even back in the day, look at the women's movement,
we lead, we activate, we engage,
because we understand what the level
of suppression means for us.
We really feel like there's still
an issue here in America, and we wanna be able
to use our platforms, we wanna be able to use our voices,
we don't wanna let anybody silence us
in what we want to talk about,
so you guys can ask away about anything
that's happened in the society.
2016 Was a very unique time, I think,
for the W, I think it was a unique time for our country.
We were at a point, I think, as a team,
as a collective that we felt we had
to use our voices to try to bring awareness
and to help create change.
I remember how I felt,
I remember how multiple players felt
watching the death of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling,
and countless others that came.
It is time that we take a deep look at our ability
to become compassionate and empathetic
to those suffering from the problems
that are deep within our society.
The Lynx started the trend wearing T-shirts
and demanding that press conferences talk
about these crucial life or death issues
facing black people in this society.
Other teams got on board and did the same thing,
the Liberty, the Fever.
What I've learned, as an athlete,
of this rising generation is
that we're no longer comfortable
simply staying on the sidelines.
We had the ability to bring 144 women together
to basically say, "This is how we're gonna message,
and this is what we're gonna do."
If players are sitting here with these shirts on
and you're asking them, "How do you feel about missing
that layup, and you lost the game?"
And the person's like, "I'm wearing this
because somebody's dead and their family's grieving,
and this has to end."
Who has the guts to ask that?
And for them to demand that the narrative change,
and them using their platforms to force it to change.
It's unfortunate that the WNBA has fined us
and not supported its players.
The league's reaction was to fine us
for not listening, I guess, to protocols.
The league was afraid of what putting
a progressive foot forward would mean
for the existential life of the league.
It made us more united.
We had conversations in our locker room
because the reality of it is some players were saying,
"Look, I can't afford a fine, I can't afford a $500 fine."
They're not getting paid enough.
But you have veterans sitting in a room,
like me, like Tanisha Wright, like Tina Charles,
like Epiphanny Prince, other veterans
that are in the room saying,
"I'll pay your fine."
Because, in order for a movement to happen,
you have to have everybody 10 toes down,
facing forward and going as one.
The Liberty were front and center,
and the Minnesota Lynx were front and center.
Swim is such a great leader.
She really taught me a lot about how
the front office could really best support
what the player initiatives were.
It is a lovely idea to think that the league decided
to be progressive about this on its own,
but I honestly believe it came down to
as whatever the leadgue had to fear from Nike or Adidas
or some other company held in comparison
to knowing without the buy-in of players
they did not have a league.
In 2016 the league wasn't ready,
the world wasn't ready, sports viewers were not ready.
Move on to 2020, things are very different.
Some of the players said,
"I'm not gonna play unless you let us dedicate
the season to social justice."
We're gonna go into this wobble in COVID-hotspot, Florida,
but we're also going to demand justice for Breonna Taylor,
and we're going to advocate for the end to police brutality.
You have those oblivious people out there in the world
who thinks the WNBA is a joke.
And we have 144 people, women,
who's gonna tell you to your face
that we're not a fucking joke.
We mean everything we say,
we stand behind everything we believe in,
and we're gonna keep fighting for what's right.
That, for me, is the magic of 25 years later.
This is a new woman that I'm seeing playing basketball,
this is a new league, a new platform.
Last month, we announced
our groundbreaking Collective Bargaining Agreement.
We can pay our players more,
give them a better travel experience,
give them better benefits, whether it's maternity
or childcare stipend or fertility benefits.
The ladies, with this last past CBA,
they understood the assignment and they got it done.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA,
lays out the rules of the road.
Everything from how players move between teams
to how much money they're going to make
to the way in which they're treated,
day to day, by their teams.
That's where onsite childcare
during game days and practices came in.
That's where apartments with two bedrooms
rather than one came in.
It turns out that the people who play
in the WNBA understand that when you have a small child
you might need a separate space for that child.
The WNBA wants to make sure
that its players do not have to play abroad.
Things like increasing the maximum salary
from 119,500 to 215,000, overnight,
helps to get you there.
Women have been asked to be grateful
to be able to play sports.
Today's generation is like,
"I'm sorry, we have to be what again?"
"Why do I have to deal with the legacy of the stuff
that you guys should have fixed 30 years ago?"
I am glad they feel that way
and I hope they're gonna use all of that energy
to push for the recognition and the respect
that they deserve as athletes.
Are you ready?
God wants you to take full access
of all that he has for you.
Take advantage of the power he gives you,
take advantage of the healing he gives you.
If you don't, you only limit yourself.
He wants you to be all you can be.
Yes, B. Yes, B.
Lord, we pray that they would play
with excellence, oh God.
Even through all the ups and downs,
all the inconsistencies, all the close losses
and crazy win, we're still not out.
We thank you for them.
In order for us to have a chance
to be in the playoffs we had to win this game.
In Jesus name, amen.
Amen. Thank you.
We need to solidify a playoff spot.
So everybody came in with that mindset
and that focus of we don't want this
to potentially be our last game.
My grandma, she's paying attention to sports now.
She was like, "You know you have to win the game, right?"
And I was like, yes, grandma,
that's what we're trying to do,
and we wanna make the playoffs.
New York Liberty!
This is not over yet, we still have this game,
we can still make it to the playoffs.
And we're off.
This is do or die.
Natasha Howard breaks the ice,
she gets the Liberty on the board.
♪ Take 'em back with my enemies ♪
Sabrina hits the three.
♪ I can run this whole thing with me eyes closed ♪
♪ We'd already gamin' ♪
Sami Whitcomb will try for three
the old-fashioned way.
♪ Get a mic, need a medic ♪
♪ You might talk so slick ♪
♪ If I say it then I mean it ♪
Sami Whitcomb doesn't hesitate.
♪ I'm a boss ♪
♪ That's how the coins was tossed ♪
♪ Hopin' that I lose ♪
♪ Well I'm sorry for your loss ♪
Natasha Howard's on fire,
she's got 13 all by herself.
♪ Win by any means ♪
They cut off Sabrina.
♪ Win by any means ♪
♪ Say, win now, win now ♪
Hold back the baby.
Hits from deep,
The 1st half will come to a close.
The New York Liberty with a 17-point advantage
led by Natasha Howard's 14 points.
♪ Right up to the game, right up to the game ♪
♪ This is my show ♪
We did start to get lazy defensively,
and they bailed us, they missed some shots.
We got lazy and got lucky.
They've gotta tighten that up.
You know what? They in the cause go to the aggressor.
We started out that way punching, we can't let up.
We can not.
I would like to see more of this.
This driving kick, gets you two in the paint.
Great drive, great drive, I love it, keep it up.
Offensively, you guys have done a hell of a job
and you guys cannot let up one bit.
Mm hmm. Okay, not one bit.
Those doubles have to stay aggressive as shit, okay?
We're not gonna let 'em get back into this game.
Liberty, 1, 2, 3. Liberty!
Come on, ya'll.
Okay, we up 20.
No way we about to give away a 20-point lead.
Okay, here we go.
Cloud voice up the three and knocks it down.
Mitchell hits the three.
And by the time you know it.
Ariel Atkins then hits the three.
In just a matter of seconds.
Atkins again. Feeling it!
Ariel Atkins knocks it down
and the lead is down to 10.
- We're leading. - B!
Get it, get it, get it, get it get it!
Tom! Hold them done there, Mich.
Walker-Kimbrough.
And they cut it to single digits,
and I was like, what the fuck?
God damn it, they can't score.
Pick up!
Walker-Kimbrough hits the three.
And the lead is down to five.
Playoff implications on the line.
Up, up, up!
She's just running into us and knocking us.
Jesus Christ!
Time is on our side, y'all!
Come on, time is on our side!
Dig in! Dig in!
- Go, go, go! - Come on! Come on!
Time-out!
You got 'em, Dus. We know it.
B, you're gonna handle
we've done this screen,
we're comin' up high, stay high. Yeah.
That's it.
Everything we've learned from other fucking game,
right here, so come on, come on!
- Liberty, 1, 2, 3! - Liberty!
We had to play to win, we had to go back
to what was working for us in the 1st quarter.
Playing to win instead of playing not to lose.
Forward! Three!
♪ Got 'em to the game ♪
♪ Right until the 28 ♪
♪ Bad out, bad out Win by any means ♪
Sabrina Ionescu!
Hey, we need
I know.
Nice bin!
They're not gonna steal this game from us
like we've had done to us plenty of times.
Howard!
Sabrina Ionescu, and that's the quick shot
off there and Ionescu hits it again!
Another huge bucket!
♪ Welcome to the game, this is my show ♪
They win this game tonight.
The New York Liberty will be in the post-season
for the first time since 2017.
♪ Bow down to the queen ♪
It's fuckin' great.
♪ To the queen right now ♪
The one thing you need to win a championship,
you have to obviously have the players,
you have to have the staff that supports the players,
you have to have the resources.
It's a grind throughout the WNBA season,
you need a little bit of luck with some health.
But at the end of the day, you have to have
that persona of we are here to win day in and day out.
This team is young, but you see that they want it,
it's now just about learning what it looks like.
It's a desire to want it that bad.
You gotta want it that bad
that nothing freaking else matters but to win it.
It's worth remembering that the New York Liberty
were a contender, year in and year out,
early on in the history of the WNBA.
With Houston, we quickly developed that type of rivalry.
The Houston Comets were, they won four championships in a row.
And New York came up against Houston Comets
in the finals for three of the four years
that they won those championships.
Can't believe it, it's time to play, baby.
It's that time again!
Van Chancellor has one time-out left,
but he's not gonna call it.
We'll put it in the hands of Cynthia Cooper.
Cooper to Thompson.
Tina Thompson puts it up
score with 2.4 remaining.
The Comets, up by 2.
Liberty out of time-outs.
The Houston Comets appeared to everyone
as if they had done what they normally do,
which is won again.
There's ticker tape on the ground,
and it would take an absolute miracle
for the New York Liberty to pull this out.
I just remember grabbing the ball out of the net
and just like, damn we lose another one to these guys.
Kim is slowly walking to get the ball.
No one's around me, so I'm screaming,
Kim, throw the ball, throw the ball.
So Spoon had ran to the half-court line
and I had wanted to roll the ball to her
just to maximize the clock
and not use any time off the clock,
but when Tina Thompson saw that,
she started running back towards her.
And so I just had to pass it into her.
They've gotta go the length of the floor.
Teresa Weatherspoon, at the buzzer, for three!
Oh, she put it in!
She put it in!
And the Liberty win game two!
What a finish!
Unbelievable!
Time happens for me to throw it up there.
I heed and it goes up and it took forever to drop.
I stopped and I was watching it thinking,
that has a chance.
This crowd is absolutely stunned.
One of the most amazing finishes in the WNBA.
And there'll be a game played tomorrow afternoon.
Everyone was on the floor on Teresa,
and I remember just leaning, falling on the pile
and all I could think of was, get up, get up,
'cause I don't hurt anyone, get up,
and we have to play tomorrow.
And I felt like we were gonna win it,
because then I felt like that was our omen.
That was our sign, but.
Hanging in there with us, baby. Hold on.
- All right, good job, Teresa. - Thanks, baby.
And to know we worked so hard.
And we got there and it never happened for us.
It still bothers me.
It still bothers me because
those ladies chose me as their leader.
That I didn't come through for them bothers me.
It's official, there's a dynasty in the WNBA,
the Houston Comets have won their 3rd straight championship.
But to know that I didn't see
them celebrate a championship bothers me.
When they started winning those championships,
I believe Spoon took that personal,
and we all took it personal.
We were like, "Uh-uh, this isn't gonna happen," so...
Spoon's last shot, it was the epitome of Spoon.
I will never ever stop, I'm only gonna lose
because we ran outta time.
And that's how it always felt with New York Liberty.
You never ever, ever give up on an opportunity.
It's crushing.
To go to the championship a few times
and get so close to winning it, it's devastating.
And everybody's always thinking what could I have done?
Here to perform "Unfinished Business",
please welcome Joan Jeff and The Blackhearts.
♪ Unfinished business ♪
♪ Risin' to the top ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
♪ Never gonna stop ♪
So we recorded the song and we played it at the halftime
at Madison Square Garden.
You gotta know I love the Liberty to do that.
♪ Let's go Liberty ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
The business isn't done, you still gotta win.
Women, Heck yeah.
we gotta win, New York. Right.
♪ Gonna break through ♪
♪ Ow ♪
Yes, Nina is here.
It's really unfortunate that we can't play
in our arena tonight, it's booked out.
A concert, I believe.
And that's not fair really.
That's pretty disrespectful for our team
that there's really no home court advantage.
We're just playing on a neutral site now.
Does that happen to the Phoenix Suns
when they make the playoffs?
No. No, it doesn't.
Let's get it.
Here he is.
Yo, where do I go?
Just out?
Out to the right. Out to the right.
Okay.
I'm curious as to what you think
this playoff appearance represents for this team?
Moving forward we wanna be a playoff team
every single year, but this is where it starts,
it starts making playoffs first,
it starts getting that experience
and learning what it takes to win
in a single game elimination when your season's on the line.
Welcome to ESPN's coverage
of the WNBA playoffs.
Welcome back the New York Liberty,
who have missed the playoffs the last three seasons,
won only two games last year.
Thank God they get to the playoffs
on the final day of the regular season.
Let's go!
Facing the New York Liberty,
I knew they could be a dangerous team
if we allow them to be dangerous.
So it's more about making sure we come out really strong.
The winner will advance on,
the loser goes home.
Let the playoff go on.
And we are underway.
Sabrina Ionescu with the first bucket.
waiting for Ionescu to come by.
Sabrina in her playoff day debut looks ready.
Howard hit the deck trying to draw the charge.
And she scores!
They're being the aggressors, and they're getting calls.
They're gonna foul you guys, okay?
But we're going away from contact
instead of going into it.
Find an arm, rip up through it
and go get an hand on one, okay?
That's how we inch our way back into the stadium,
that's how they get frustrated.
Whitcomb hanging out at the three point line,
where she lives.
9-0, Liberty run.
They're working very well now.
Betnijah Laney.
Laney, creating and then finishing with her off hand.
Richards thanks Whitcomb for the pass.
Look what we have here
with New York catapulting back on top.
Laney gets it.
I don't know Betnijah Laney in this game.
Laney follows her own miss.
Biggest lead for New York.
Laney bringing that New York state
of mind to the desert.
Griner, with Whitcomb whose a lot shorter.
Can they hit 'em again?
And she does, and then she screams.
Now, and can she counter?
Yes!
Cunningham with a new career play off high.
Oh my God!
That's Sabrina returning
the favor and gets it in.
Takes the fight to the screen.
Eight ties and 12 lead changes.
Ionescu to Howard with the perfect pass.
Laney, a nice fake.
Beautiful.
That was a nice fake and a better pass to Howard.
So well executed by the New York Liberty.
Sophie cross court to Skylar.
It goes in!
The game is tied.
Ionescu gets New York back on top.
Sophie.
Are you kidding me?
Everyone on their feet.
Skylar!
New York does have a time-out,
but they're not gonna take it.
Played it.
What a game.
Betnijah Laney with the three.
Betnijah Laney, I mean, what an inspiring story,
the growth of her as a player.
She could win a game on her own.
What a game here in Phoenix.
They were playing aggressive,
and then it came down to the last play of the game.
I had a feeling they're gonna trap BG,
'cause they've done it all game.
Now! Go!
Turner fouled!
With 0.4 seconds left to go,
Sami Whitcomb commits the foul.
Sami Whitcomb.
Up!
Turner only got one shot left.
Got it.
Time-out, New York.
But they only have 0.4 seconds to get a shot off.
Is that enough time for New York?
Is that as loud as you can be? Turn it up!
They need Ionescu.
Her shot. Short.
And the Phoenix Mercury in one of the
most memorable playoff games that we've seen in a while,
eliminate New York 83-82.
Tonight that we was here,
we made mistakes but nothing too big,
we didn't win, but that's big.
This is the momentum we need going into next year.
We got this. Here we go.
- Come on y'all. - Come on y'all.
Liberty on 3. 1-2-3. Liberty!
The New York Liberty should not
hang their heads.
That young team came in here and they put up a fight.
This should propel New York
into great things for the next year.
Having a team the way that we've build it,
we we're gonna go through those learning curves,
we were gonna take those losses
so that we could build this team the way
that we wanted to build it.
We build up a young core so that we can bring
in the Betnijahs, that we've bring in Natasha,
they wanna be here.
Our goal is definitely to win a championship,
and it won't just be for us,
it will be for everybody that came before us,
everybody that believed in us.
When we get to that point, that's when Teaspoon,
Crystal Robinson, they can get their rings.
You have to do it for Teaspoon.
The game means that much to me.
The game means that much that I leave
something for someone else to be able to take.
Not just take it from me,
how about leave something for someone else?
That when you walk away, that they got it.
You left something for someone else to grow in.
Leaders lead.
And when leaders lead, they make sure
they left the leader when they leave.
This is reciprocal, this is giving back, giving back.
If you want something to last, it has to be a circle.
Those that started it, and it goes all the way around
to those that are currently in it.
That's just the evolution of sports.
We're so happy to see these girls get these things
and to get more, now they have to bear that responsibility
and continue to build and grow
so that the generation after them,
it'll be even better for them.
When you walk in that day and your day is done,
you better make sure you able to tell yourself you
did something great for someone else.
You helped someone else.
If you give a hand, you better be given a hand
to lift somebody up.
Michaela Onyenwere, Rookie of The Year.
Winning Rookie of The Year
was definitely not in my expectations.
Making her all-star debut, Betnijah Laney!
I could not be more ecstatic for B to be an all-star.
I guess now I am in the all-star club.
And I wanna stay there.
I have Betnijah as a all-star.
I said I just want you to know,
every all-star game that mommy played in,
mommy was the MVP.
♪ Lookin' to run ♪
♪ Lookin' to score ♪
♪ You left me hanging' round ♪
♪ And I'm lookin' for more ♪
When somebody becomes available
that hasn't been available in a near decade,
that has championship experience,
you have to take your shot at that person.
I am the new head coach of the New York Liberty.
♪ Unfinished business Risin' to the top ♪
♪ Unfinished business Never gonna stop ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
Uh-oh, I think we've got a super team
in the making in New York City.
The Liberty acquired Jonquel Jones,
the 2021 WNBA MVP-
One of the greatest players
in WNBA history.
Breanna Stewart is headed
to the New York Liberty.
New York landed another all-star,
point guard Courtney Vandersloot.
We both saw our futures being really bright
here in New York.
It would mean everything to me to be able
It's exciting to see
the super team era is now happening.
Jonquel came and then Stewie came
and then Courtney Vandersloot came,
and so now it's kind of the talk of the town.
Once you see the greats,
it's like, "Oh, we're gonna win."
♪ Unfinished business Risin' to the top ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
♪ Never gonna stop ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
♪ Got a job to do ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
Liberty are an incredible story
about the trajectory of women's sports.
Talk about going from Madison Square Garden
to the Westchester County Center,
to the Barclays Center.
It really is a story about the respect that's conferred
on women as athletes and on the potential future
of the league.
♪ Let's go Liberty ♪
These players can play
and I think that's what I'm hearing more
and more and more of.
The players get better and better.
It has been phenomenal.
It's reached the level that we hadn't seen before.
Have you ever been to a WNBA game?
I'll leave you tickets.
If you go to a game,
and you can honestly go to that game
and tell me you didn't enjoy yourself,
I'll buy you some Jordan's, I'll buy you dinner.
♪ Let's go Liberty ♪
♪ There's unfinished business ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
♪ There's unfinished business ♪
♪ Unfinished business ♪
This is it?
Oh, my God.
Thank you, guys.
This was so fun.
Oh, my gosh, you know what?
How'd that fly.
The time went by fast.
I did really good.
I appreciate you all so much for your time.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Awesome.
♪ Ow ♪