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Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu had precious little time to bask in winning the gold medal.
The Liberty’s WNBA title aspirations beckon.
On Sunday, the star duo was in Paris, helping mount a nervy second-half rally to overcome host France and secure Team USA’s dynastic eighth consecutive Olympics title.
On Thursday, they were in Los Angeles, where the Liberty opened the second half of the schedule with an authoritative 103-68 win over the rebuilding Sparks behind 27 points from Stewart and 18 from Ionescu.
The Olympic voyage is complete, but the memories will last a lifetime.
Ionescu specifically mentioned the experience of participating in the opening ceremony.
Stewart spoke about seeing teammate and former Russian captive Brittney Griner get emotional during the medal ceremony.
The highlight for both players, as they reflected four days and nine time zones later, was clear: They won.
“Because it’s not easy, it’s not easy to completely stop your season, everyone’s coming from different [WNBA] teams,” Stewart said. “But our USA team, we were able to really kind of come together, and it was a great group and we had a lot of fun.”
Ionescu thought about sharing Team USA’s triumph with her loved ones.
“Especially with my parents who aren’t from the United States and were able to watch their daughter live out her dreams after moving to this country to provide that for their children,” Ionescu said. “Seeing how happy they were and how special that was, to understand all their hard work [paid] off, was something that I’ll never forget.”
Now, it’s a tight turnaround to the thick of a playoff race.
The Liberty (22-4), chasing the first WNBA title in franchise history, own a three-game lead atop the standings in the race for home-court advantage throughout the postseason.
The second-half schedule is a sprint of 15 games in 36 days.
Stewart and Ionescu were afforded an extra recovery day Wednesday before leaping back into the grind.
Liberty reserves Leonie Fiebich and Nyara Sabally also played in the Olympics with Germany, and head coach Sandy Brondello was in France piloting Australia to the bronze medal.
“We want to play and continue to pick up where we left off, but understanding there’ll be a little bit of a process in terms of getting back to the speed that we were playing at before,” said Ionescu, who logged 23 minutes in the blowout win. “But I’m not too worried. I mean, we’ve both been playing this entire time and I think are really eager to get back with New York and finish the second half of the season really strong.”
Next is a Saturday date with the Aces, who beat the Liberty in last year’s Finals and line up as a potential semifinal opponent.
“Everything we did in the first half of the season, it doesn’t really matter except for the record,” said Stewart, who played just 20 minutes and hit three 3-pointers in one 55-second stretch. “Having a month away from our entire team together, it’s kind of hard, especially when you literally played Sunday with Team USA and now it’s Thursday and we have a game. So just making sure that we’re all locked in on an individual and a team perspective, and we are.
“And going out the same way we did in the first half of the season, like, no excuses.”
