New York Liberty Advance to WNBA Finals

New York is finally going to play in the basketball championship game! No, not the Knicks, the New York Liberty is heading to the WNBA championship!

According to ESPN, the Liberty, the only original WNBA franchise that has not won a championship, will get the opportunity to win one after their impressive victory over the Connecticut Sun 87-84. They won the series three games to one. This is the first time the New York team has advanced to the finals in over 20 years. Their last appearance took place in 2002.

The Sun has SET.
ON TO THE FINALS BABY 🤩 #SEAFOAMSZN | #LIGHTITUPNYL🗽 pic.twitter.com/UA72DJKD66
— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) October 1, 2023

The upcoming championship game, which is slated to start on Sunday, October 8 will pit the Liberty against the Las Vegas Aces. The contest will have the teams with the best records competing against each other. The Aces is the only team to have a better record than the Liberty. Las Vegas is the current WNBA champion trying to hold on to that title for another year.

“I think it’s good. That’s the narrative everyone wanted at the start,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “I didn’t particularly like the superteam thing … [but] it’s going to be a great series and it’s a promotion for the WNBA, isn’t it? It’s New York, we haven’t done it for so long, but we’re playing the champions from last year. I think it’s going to be a really competitive series and hopefully, more and more people turn their eyes into the game and we can continue to grow it.”

Just last year, the New York team had a losing record. In fact, the team has had five consecutive losing seasons (2018-22) before this one. It has been a record-breaking season for the Liberty as they compiled a franchise-record .800 winning percentage. New York also finished the game with three of their players scoring at least 20 points during the contest. That was the first time this took place in franchise postseason history. This has happened 13 other times in WNBA postseason history.

Turning the skies seafoam green for one hour tonight in honor of the @NYLiberty moving on to the WNBA finals! 🗽 pic.twitter.com/ATKD53dxPH
— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) October 1, 2023

The two teams will have a best-of-five series:

Game	Date	Matchup	Time	Channel
Game 1	Sunday, October 8	New York at Las Vegas	3 PM ET	ABC
Game 2	Wednesday, October 11	New York at Las Vegas	9 PM ET	ESPN
Game 3	Sunday, October 15	Las Vegas at New York	3 PM ET	ABC
Game 4*	Wednesday, October 18	Las Vegas at New York	8 PM ET	ESPN
Game 5*	Friday, October 20	New York at Las Vegas	9 PM ET	ESPN