LOS ANGELES — Breanna Stewart drained a 3-pointer at the top of the key, turned and slapped Sabrina Ionescu’s hand so loud it echoed through Crypto.com Arena.
The Liberty, led by Stewart and Ionescu, silenced the Sparks for the moment.
Stewart’s shot with 3:33 left in the fourth punctuated a 12-4 run for the Liberty to give them an 11-point advantage, their largest lead of the game at that point.
But a lead never seems to be safe with this team.
The Sparks rattled off seven unanswered points to cut the lead to four.
Los Angeles won a challenge on a call that would’ve sent Stewart to the line. The Liberty won a jump ball. Stewart then dribbled inside before kicking it out to Rebecca Allen who knocked in the dagger corner 3.
The Liberty, who trailed by as many as nine in the second half, rallied and held on, beating the Kelsey Plum-less Sparks 113-109 on Tuesday.
Stewart ensured the Liberty started this second chunk of the season on the right note as she led the team with 29 points and seven assists.
Ionescu, Stewart’s main partner in crime, added 27 points, six rebounds and six assists.
The Liberty also got a major boost from the bench, which outscored the Sparks’ reserves 41-19.
The game avenged the Liberty’s last visit to Los Angeles.
In that late June meeting, New York squandered a 17-point second-half lead and lost on a Nneka Ogwumike buzzer-beater. That defeat was near the beginning of a run where New York lost eight of 10 games, which was the worst such stretch in the Liberty’s superteam era.
New York won back-to-back one-point games leading into the All-Star break, with Ionescu looking more like herself after missing most of the first five weeks with injuries.
Defensively, Tuesday wasn’t the Liberty’s best outing. The Sparks feasted on New York’s zone. The Liberty’s defense has struggled without Leonie Fiebich, who’s been out for more than three weeks with a left foot injury.
In the end, though, the Liberty found a way to extend their win streak to three.
