{"id":157205,"date":"2025-09-14T23:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T23:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/157205\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T23:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T23:44:11","slug":"liberty-rally-in-ot-after-near-collapse-for-game-1-win-over-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/157205\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty rally in OT after near collapse for Game 1 win over Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 The Liberty said they were saving their best basketball for last.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They said they were building and now healthy could maximize this group\u2019s potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in Game 1 of the first-round series between the defending champions and the Mercury Sunday, New York looked like a team on the brink of a collapse.<\/p>\n

The Liberty squandered a seven-point lead in the third, scoring only two points over the final 5:04 of that quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The game went into overtime after both teams missed opportunities down the stretch to go ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But then that championship mentality and playoff experience kicked in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NatashaNatasha Cloud celebrates during the Liberty-Mercury game on Sept. 14, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\"BreannaBreanna Stewart looks on during the Liberty-Mercury game on Sept. 14, 2025. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Natasha Cloud, who looked like she was out for vengeance against her former team, made a 3. <\/p>\n

Then, Breanna Stewart made a layup through contact, though she was slow to get up and after making the free throw checked out for the final 2:07.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A camera showed Stewart looking visibly upset on the bench, and her status wasn\u2019t immediately clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Liberty outscored the Mercury 11-4 in overtime to beat the Mercury 76-69 and take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 The Liberty said they were saving their best basketball for last.\u00a0 They said they were building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[436,5551,99,434],"class_list":["post-157205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}