This time a week ago, a "pissed off" Breanna Stewart sat in front of the media and took accountability for costing her team a Game 1 win in the 2024 WNBA Finals with a missed free throw and botched layup at the end of regulation and overtime, respectively.
"I think what really is kind of driving and motivating me is we have an opportunity to change it," Stewart said. "I have an opportunity to change it."
If she had been so inclined, she could haved played a recording of those comments for her postgame press conference on Friday night. Stewart finished with just 11 points on a disastrous 5 of 21 from the field in the New York Liberty's 82-80 loss to the Minnesota Lynx in Game 4.
Instead of celebrating a championship -- Stewart's third and the first in franchise history -- the Liberty will have to head back to Brooklyn with a winner-take-all Game 5 looming.
On the very first possession of the game, Stewart watched a 3-pointer spin around the rim and pop out. So it would go for the two-time MVP, who simply didn't have it in Game 4. She missed her first eight shots, which included wide open 3s and point blank layups.
Somehow, it got worse.
Stewart went 1 of 8 in the fourth quarter, with four of those misses coming on potential go-ahead shots, including one with less than 20 seconds to play in regulation. Again, some of them were incomprehensible for a player of her talent.
Like this running layup.
Or this short push shot in the lane.
"I mean, I think that I was going a little bit too fast," Stewart said when asked about her poor shooting performance. "I just needed to slow down. They are sending multiple people when I'm slipping on a screen, stuff like that. A little bit better awareness on my part. But quick turnaround and be ready for Sunday."
There have been 193 instances of a player taking at least 20 shots in a playoff game in WNBA history. Stewart's 11 points are the second-fewest and her 23.8 field goal percentage is tied for the fourth-worst.
On a personal level, this was the 56th time, including the regular season and playoffs, that Stewart took at least 20 shots. Game 4 was the lowest-scoring and least-efficient game of the bunch. Furthermore, her 11 points are tied for her third-fewest in a playoff game in her career.
Put simply, this was an all-time bad game for Stewart, and it came at the worst possible moment.
Poor shot-making has become a much bigger issue Stewart in recent years. From 2017-2022, (so excluding her rookie season), she shot under 30% in a game just 10 times. She had exactly as many such outings in the last two seasons.
If there's a silver lining for Stewart and the Liberty, it's that she rarely plays bad twice in a row. Just once in 2023 and 2024 did she shoot under 30% in consecutive games. In fact, her average field goal percentage after a sub-30% shooting performance is 48.8%.
Already this postseason, we've seen Stewart deliver redemptive performances. After shooting 7 of 17 and dishing out just one assist in a Game 3 loss to the Las Vegas Aces in the semifinals, Stewart closed out that series with a monster 19-point, 14-rebound, five-assist, four-block effort in Game 4. Likewise, following the Game 1 debacle in this matchup with the Lynx, she went off for 21 points, nine rebounds, five assists and a Finals-record seven steals in the Liberty's wire-to-wire Game 2 win.
"Short-term memory," Stewart explained about her and her team's ability to respond to adversity. The Liberty have lost back-to-back games just once all season, and that was back in May. "For our team, we bounce back after a loss really, really well.
In order to lift the trophy on Sunday, they'll have to keep that trend going, and Stewart will have to redeem herself ... again.
"We are going back to New York," Stewart said. "And we're going to get it done."
