{"id":151540,"date":"2025-09-18T00:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T00:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/151540\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T00:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T00:36:10","slug":"libertys-stewart-to-start-game-2-against-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/151540\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty’s Stewart to start Game 2 against Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Breanna Stewart will be back in the New York Liberty<\/a> lineup for Game 2 of the WNBA playoffs.<\/p>\n

Stewart sprained the MCL in her left knee in the opener of the first-round matchup against Phoenix and New York was trying to wrap up the series at home Wednesday.<\/p>\n

After being listed as a game-time decision, the Liberty announced that Stewart would return to the starting give shortly before tip-off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan for (Stewart) is to go through warmups and push it as hard as she can and then make a decision,\u201d Brondello said before the game. \u201cIt’s really pain tolerance for her, but we want to make sure that she’s able to go and confident. She’s getting rest and treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart said after going through shootaround Wednesday morning wearing a sleeve on her left knee that she intended to play in Game 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make sure I tried in shootaround and barring anything crazy happening between now and (the game), that’s my plan,” Stewart said. “I just want to make sure I wake up from my nap and don’t feel (bad).\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart injured the knee when she drove to the baseline and was fouled with 3:01 left in overtime of Sunday’s\u00a0Game 1. The knee appeared to buckle and she went down and grabbed it. After a New York timeout, Stewart attempted a free throw but missed it. She wore a knee brace after the injury, then came out a minute later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sprained my MCL basically, that’s what I felt in the moment. Scared me more than anything,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cI’m very happy to have my MRI result back and know that it’s something that I can play through depending on how much pain I’m going to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart said that when she first got up after injuring the knee, it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to stay in the game. Shoot the free throw, missed the free throw,” she said. “But anything laterally was not as enjoyable, and I felt like we were in a good spot where I told Sandy I need to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart didn\u2019t practice Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day it’s gotten better,\u201d she said Wednesday. \u201cThankfully we had today … I was able to just, like, really rest, recover, get as much treatment as possible, so that I can hopefully go out and compete with my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phoenix players and coaches weren’t surprised to hear that Stewart planned to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been planning on that,\u201d Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said. \u201cYou don’t want to see anybody be injured. I’m glad it was nothing serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then said his team \u201cprobably\u201d would test Stewart’s mobility early.<\/p>\n

Stewart, who had 18 points and six rebounds before leaving Game 1,\u00a0missed about a month\u00a0of the season with a bone bruise on the other knee, suffered in late July.<\/p>\n

Game 3 would be Friday in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

The Liberty have had a difficult season with injuries.\u00a0Jonquel Jones\u00a0missed significant time early in the year with a sprained ankle and Sabrina Ionescu was out for a few games late with a toe injury she suffered in practice.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from Sportsnet Staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Breanna Stewart will be back in the New York Liberty lineup for Game 2 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-151540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}