{"id":494565,"date":"2026-02-27T23:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/494565\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T23:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:53:10","slug":"unrivaled-brings-3x3-stars-to-barclays-center-for-historic-semifinals-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/494565\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrivaled brings 3\u00d73 stars to Barclays Center for historic semifinals \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"MixCollage-27-Feb-2026-03-44-PM-1523\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Left: New York Liberty and Phantom guard Natasha Cloud defends Rickea Jackson during Unrivaled\u2019s Jan. 30 game in Philadelphia. Right: Sabrina Ionescu and Cloud share the court in the same record-setting matchup, part of the momentum driving the league to its upcoming Brooklyn semifinals.<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Unrivaled<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s 3\u00d73 basketball league Unrivaled will be taking its talents to Barclays Center for the league semifinals Monday night.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The move marks a big moment for the second-year league, which features many WNBA stars, like Unrivaled founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. It\u2019s the first time they\u2019ll be playing in an arena that houses a WNBA team, and the second time they\u2019ll be playing outside of their home base in Miami.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, Unrivaled made their first tour stop ever in Philadelphia \u2014 now the highest-attended women\u2019s basketball regular season game ever, with 21,490 fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilly was awesome because it was the first time. It was a spectacle of Unrivaled on the road,\u201d Luke Cooper, president of Basketball Operations for Unrivivaled, told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cWhat\u2019s gonna make New York fun is [that] these games really mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeding for the six-team playoff will be set in stone on Friday, the last day of the regular season. The first round of the playoffs is on Saturday in Miami, where the No. 3 plays No. 6 seed, and the No. 4 plays the No. 5 seed. Winners go to Brooklyn, where the top two seeds will be waiting. Those games are at 7:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fans attending the semifinals in Brooklyn will definitely see the No. 1 seeded Phantom \u2014 the only playoff spot that\u2019s been locked in \u2014 featuring New York Liberty guard Natasha Cloud and other WNBA stars like Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Plum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Breanna Stewart, representing the Mist, goes head-to-head with Breeze wing Dominque Malonga in Unrivaled\u2019s Feb. 23 matchup.Photo courtesy of Unrivaled<\/p>\n

The current No. 2 seed Mist features New York Liberty star Stewart. If the Mist win against current No. 6 seed Vinyl on Friday, they\u2019ll punch their ticket to Brooklyn as the No. 2 seed. If not, they\u2019ll play the No. 6 seed (potentially a rematch against the Vinyl, depending on seeding) Saturday for the chance to go.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cooper said the plan to host the semifinals in Brooklyn came together rather quickly, based on the success in Philadelphia \u2014 the plans were only finalized two days before the announcement two weeks ago. Fans jumped at the opportunity \u2014 90% of inventory has been sold, Cooper said, including 10,000 sold seats in the first 12 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was kind of a bet on ourselves, bet on the league, bet on the players, bet on the fans, type moment,\u201d Cooper said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Touring is something Unrivaled will explore more in the future. The league is considering whether to go to areas that don\u2019t currently have WNBA teams, so fans can see top-level talent in their market, or going to cities with vested interest in women\u2019s basketball like New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the last-minute semis announcement, the league has been in contact with Barclays for over a year discussing potential tour stops. This time, the dates happened to line up because the Brooklyn Nets are on a road trip, and the league felt the opportunity was too good to pass on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cloud and potentially Stewart have the chance to play in their home arena on Monday, too, since they\u2019re Liberty players. Cooper said he hadn\u2019t heard any chatter about a potential home court advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure, if the Mist are able to punch their ticket, there might be a few extra cheers for them,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThe fan base that\u2019s in New York, from a women\u2019s basketball perspective, is hard to ignore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Left: New York Liberty and Phantom guard Natasha Cloud defends Rickea Jackson during Unrivaled\u2019s Jan. 30 game in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[4889,435,3,4910,99,18419,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-494565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-barclays-center","9":"tag-breanna-stewart","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-newsletter","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-unrivaled","14":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494565","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=494565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}