Sabrina Ionescu set the tone as the Liberty clinched a spot in the WNBA semifinals with a 91-82 win over the Atlanta Dream at Barclays Center on Tuesday night.
“We have unfinished business,” she said on air before the Las Vegas Aces beat the Seattle Storm to book a spot in the semifinals.
Liberty will be looking for revenge this season and a repeat loss to the Aces in the round before last year's final loss would raise a lot of questions about the top seed.
They had some early, pressure-filled opportunities from Sunday to seize a chance for revenge.
“[The Liberty have] “They played like an angry team,” Aces coach Becky Hammon told reporters on Tuesday. “They played with an edge, and we've been working our way up there. I feel like we've got that edge back over the last three or four weeks.”
The Liberty was 3-0 against the Aces in the regular season after losing in four games in the best-of-five finals last season.
However, the Aces' Chelsea Gray and A'ja Wilson each missed one of those matchups, while the Liberties' Courtney VanderSloot and Betnijah-Laney-Hamilton each missed at least one of those games.
The Aces, who are gunning for an inevitable third consecutive championship, have won eight straight games in recent weeks, including the playoffs, after starting the regular season with a 22-13 record, and are looking worthy of being back-to-back champions.
Gray entered this season still nursing a leg injury sustained in last year's final, with Jackie Young taking on a new role as facilitator.
The offense struggled to get going, with 2024 MVP Wilson shouldering much of the burden.
The Aces' defense has also been weak, allowing 32 points in the fourth quarter in a comeback win against the Wings on Aug. 27.
But since then, Hammon has rebuilt the team, with the Aces winning nine of their last 10 regular season games.
But the regular season is now a thing of the past, and Sunday will be a clean slate for the Liberty and Aces in a storyline-packed series.
Here are some examples:
Liberty's improved backcourt
From the closing statement ahead of the 2023 season, it was clear that the Liberty are looking for an athletic, sizeable and defensive-minded player to add to their bench.
They found it in Leonie Fiebig.
Fiebich performed well throughout the regular season and was named the starter in the playoffs, replacing VanderSloot. At 6'4″, Fiebich has a good physique, can shoot from the outside and can defend opposing guards.
In last year's Finals, Ionescu and VanderSloot struggled to contain the Aces' backcourt offensive, with the guards scoring 72 of Las Vegas' 99 points in Game 1. They also struggled to shoot the ball against the Aces' defense, allowing just 17 and 19 points combined in the first two games of the series.
Of Gray, Young and Kelsey Plum, Young is the tallest at 6-foot-6, and Fiebich's height will no doubt help Liberty maintain a strong defensive line against the ace guard.
Stewart v Wilson
The semi-final series will pit the two most recent MVPs against each other, with the winner likely to advance to the finals.
Wilson was in the running to win the award this season after losing it to Stewart in 2023.
Walker averaged a league-best 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.
But Stewart is looking to bounce back from last year's performance and is still hoping to bring his home state its first championship.
She missed the game-winning shot that would have extended last year's finals, shooting just 35.8 percent from the field in the series.
Deep Sea Threat
Both teams have players on the bench who can perform on any given night.
Tiffany Hayes did that for the Aces recently, scoring 21 points in the regular season finale before coming off the bench to score 20 points in a Game 1 win over Seattle.
The 12-year veteran is averaging 14.5 points and shooting 63.2 percent from the field in the playoffs.
The Liberty's bench is deeper and ready for VanderSloot to energize it.
Kayla Thornton had three games with 16 or more points.
