Sports
New York Liberty forward Jonquel Jones is chasing an elusive WNBA title
At the beginning of the 2024 season, New York Liberty forward Jonquel Jones shared a brand new perspective on how she is approaching the upcoming 12 months.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” she said.
While Jones, entering her eighth season within the league, talked concerning the upcoming season, the phrase might be applied to many features of her WNBA profession.
In some ways, Jones’ rise through the league has been a marathon. She went from not making the All-Rookie team to being the league’s Most Improved Player in 2017 and from WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year in 2018 to being the league’s MVP in 2021.
Her goal was also to win the championship.
While Liberty battles for the championship against the Minnesota Lynx, Jones is playing within the fourth WNBA Finals of his profession. The WNBA title is considered one of the most recent awards Jones can add to his trophy case. So far it has been elusive.
This 12 months could also be Jones’ best championship run as a member of a Liberty team that finished the regular season at the highest of the league and eliminated fellow champion Las Vegas Aces en path to the WNBA Finals.
However, Jones and Liberty may have some work to do after running into Ryś while biting his nails 95-93 Overtime thriller in the primary match on Thursday. If her performance within the series opener is any indication, Jones is determined to finish the championship drought for herself and the team.
“This is the last thing JJ needs to check,” Liberty teammate Courtney Vandersloot said.
“It’s a big deal for her.”
Catalina Fragoso/NBAE via Getty Images
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, within the 28-year history of the WNBA, 10 players have lost their first three Finals appearances.
Of those 10 players, guard Katie Douglas won the championship – in 2012 with the Indiana Fever. The list includes players corresponding to forward Angel McCoughtry and former Liberty guards Becky Hammon, Vickie Johnson and Teresa Weatherspoon.
As she prepared for the finals, Jones focused on the opportunities before her.
“I just come to play hard,” Jones said. “I’m really the kind of one who focuses on one thing at a time, whatever a very powerful thing is, I let it’s a very powerful thing. Of course you learn out of your performance within the finals, but you approach it with the mindset to win the match.
Although the teams Jones played for were unsuccessful of their first three attempts at winning the championship, she delivered great play. According to ESPN Research, she is considered one of only six players in WNBA history to record greater than 20 double-doubles within the playoffs.
Jones performed brilliantly in each of his three finals appearances. In 2019, Jones averaged 19.2 points, 11 rebounds and 1.8 assists in her first Finals appearance with the Connecticut Sun against the Washington Mystics, a series that led to the fifth and final game. In 2022, Jones averaged 16 points, 8.3 rebounds and a couple of.3 assists against the Las Vegas Aces, who led the Sun in 4 games. Last season, Jones averaged 18.3 points, 9.8 rebounds and a couple of.8 blocks against the Aces as Las Vegas won its second straight title in 4 games.
On Thursday in the primary game, Jones scored 24 points and 10 rebounds, which is the best in each games.
“Honestly, that’s the story of my career,” Jones said. “If you return and have a look at all of the finals I’ve been in, I’d say I played well in them, we just didn’t win. That’s it.
Paintings by Wendell Cruz/Imagn
On a team with many future Hall of Famers, Jones was the team’s top performer within the 2023 playoffs. Ultimately, it would not be enough.
“Winning another championship and losing is always motivating. I think we did a lot of good things last year. We just needed a little bit more,” Jones said.
This season has seen a major difference in Liberty’s consistency on the court. The band used their chemistry to rework from a gaggle of interconnected stars right into a harmonious whole. Combine that with the will to return to the Finals, and the result was a Liberty squad that played as title favorite for a lot of the season.
“Our team had a year to really grow, understand and build,” Jones said. “What now we have in common is the experience of attending to the championship and losing, after which having the hunger to exit on the pitch and make a call about how we approach the match – that (losing in the ultimate) had no impact on happening again.
“We still have a job to do. … We understand it will be a struggle, but together we have been through a lot, we have built each other up and become much stronger.”
For Jones, this season was a return to her old self. Jones spent much of last season recovering from a foot injury.
“What really helped me this year was just playing basketball, getting back on track and being healthy,” Jones said.
“I think he’s just getting comfortable and I think it’s going to take time,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “She has been injured for six months and it is difficult for her emotionally and physically. It started working towards the end, but then it was about how I could recover and be better from day one. She was huge for us.”
This season, Jones was chosen to her fifth All-Star game. For Liberty, she averaged 14.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and a career-best 3.2 assists.
When asked if she sees a way of urgency in Jones this 12 months and her pursuit of the title, Vandersloot replied that there is no noticeable difference because Jones has at all times carried the identical championship energy along with her.
“I don’t necessarily see anything different because she’s always approached every season like she wants to win a championship for as long as I’ve known her,” said Vandersloot, who played with Jones overseas before they became teammates at Liberty. “Of course, I feel just a little little bit of experience will assist in this case. He knows what it’s prefer to be on this group, but he approaches it the identical.”
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Like Jones, forward Breanna Stewart and Vandersloot will make their fourth Finals appearance – a feat achieved by only 29 other players in WNBA history. Stewart won two championships with the Seattle Storm, and Vandersloot won a championship with the Chicago Sky. All three wish to win their first title since joining forces in New York last season to form an excellent team.
Vandersloot said she would like to see Jones fight for her first title.
“Especially the three of us, we colluded to come here and be in this exact situation and make JJ be her first. Stewie and I knew what it was like and of course you always want more,” Vandersloot said. “(JJ) put in the time. She got involved in the work. She became MVP. All her individual career successes. Getting there is huge for her.”
Keenly aware that it is often possible that one other likelihood on the championships won’t ever come, Jones knows that point should never be wasted when she makes it to the finals as a right – whether she wins or not. While Jones said there’s some frustration in reaching the ultimate lap multiple times a season after which ending up wanting it, she knows greater than most what the finish line looks like.
She hopes to perform that this season.
“I understand it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Jones said again, this time through the shootaround before the primary game. “You go out there and try to do whatever the team needs to win.”
Sports
“I did not know that this is a message” – Ryan Clark replies to critics “tries to call him because of his bare daughter
The Rgiii Saga versus Ryan Clark continues, and in this case it seems that Michelle Obama’s infamous approach “When he fails, you go at a high level”, is clearly outside the window.
After Clark called, like Robert Griffin III (often known as Rgia), dating and the history of marriage played a role in his recent high -profile comments about Angel Reese, some social media users studied Clark’s dating history. This investigation meant that users noticed that Clark’s eldest daughter, Jaden, is Biracial.
But did it create the moment of “Gotch” they were counting on?
In response to critics, Clark began to social media to cope with the growing comments against his daughter’s racial background.
“I didn’t know it was a message, but since other people want to talk about her … This is my first, Jaden. My God, she is beautiful. I all fell in love her, I saw her for the first time, and since then I loved her every day,” he wrote on x AND Instagram Sharing photos of his and his daughter. “Maybe the news in the light of this week is that it is biracial. So it is a great part of my God, which was given experience, and the sum of these experiences makes me who I am!”
Now Attacks on each Clark And Rgia’s personal life is due to the Rgia’s tweet, which shared under the next foul Angel Reese and Caitlain Clark through the WNBA season opener.
By adding much more fuel to the hearth, the sports commentator shared “evidence” to support his hot shot reese YouTube movie, In the actual fact that his wife was awkward within the background when he spent almost 22 minutes discrediting Reese.
“One thing we know about Rgia is that he does not talk in his home about what black women must endure in this country … About what young black women and athletes, such as Angel Reese, were dealing with,” said Clark in response to Rgia’s comment about Reese on his podcast. “So now, if you are Rgia, when the last time, at your home, you talked about what (Angel Reese) is dealing with? You were not able to do it because in both marriages you were married to white women.”
What Rgia answered, saying that a colleague sports commentator and a former colleague from the NFL team “traveled next to” the road, transforming a comment, which he thinks was rooted in basketball into a personal problem. While sport commentators are still fighting for Foul Wnba, Reese has gone from the situation.
“Basketball plays. Refs is right. Go.” she said Press conferenceAfter playing.
“My thoughts are exactly what the players say. Let’s do nothing that is not and go on”, Echo commentator Espn Ari Chambers appeared in SportsCenter.
(Tagstotransate) rgiii
Under the roof of Atlanta State Farm Arena Brittney Griner played her first game at the home from Atlanta Dream. Together together with his teammates, Brionna Jones, Te-Hina Paopao, Taylor Thierry and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough.
In the winning match in Indiana with fever, Griner welcomed welcoming shouts like a goat. Former Phoenix Mercury star, tenderly called BG, appeared “rejuvenated” in the course of the shooting before the sport and after fidgeting with son Bash. This He adapts to how he feels About Atlanta.
“I definitely have new energy in Atlanta. I feel that I am at home,” said Griner
BG began to paint with a newly decorated court in the sector, emboldened with new news: “Give respect to women’s sports”. Atlanta Dream has established cooperation with Cashapp and Playa Society to desert this campaign, which is able to cause the right view of ladies’s work within the sports industry, if there are still doubts.
From the season of WNBA it began on May 16, the Atlanta Dream team puts this work, beating Catlin Clark and Indiana Fever 91-90 on May 20 within the away match.
Brionna Jones from Dream presented her versatile influence in her last episode of two matches against a competing team. In the primary victory, she recorded 19 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, theft and block, shooting 6-Z 12 from the sphere. While the dreams fell 81-76 on May 22, Jones managed 15 points and 11 rebounds, together with three assists and theft, doing this with zero speed in the sport and adding two three points. Jones spoke in regards to the performance of the band:
“We went through the first three games (i) we become a bit more convenient,” said Jones. “I think there is still a place to grow … play with each other, the way the crime flows. We really have to get to know each other and know where we want our places and what he wants.”
Świeżak from Atlanta Te-Hina Paopao, whom her teammates praised as a great advantage, assured an offensive spark with 11 points. Her shooting into the circuit was particularly effective because 3 out of 6 attempts from outside the arch flowed. In addition to Paopao scoring, she also threw out three assists and caught two collections for her team. She finished the night with two speed.
Brittney Griner had a relatively quiet night offensively, scoring five points in shooting 2 out of 6, but operated on boards with seven rebounds and one block. Turning was a problem for her, committing three in 24 minutes of the sport.
On the opposite hand, Rhyne Howard provided a significant offensive effort, leading a dream with 24 points in shooting from the sphere, including 3-Z 7 outside the arch. In 37 minutes of motion, she filled the statistics sheet with five rebounds, two assists, two theft and one block, transforming five of her six free throw attempts. Despite its versatile production, the dream still suffered a defeat of 81-76 with Indiana fever.
After the match, Howard released Jones’s sentiment in regards to the performance of sleep when he was asked what she could learn in the primary few matches of the season, being a new team:
“I had different players, we have different cards, so the best thing is that we learn a new system together …” – said Howard. “We’re all on the same page at the end of the day.”
(Tagstranslate) WNBA Player
Oklahoma City-Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has just received the NBA award the most respected player when he noticed something suspicious. Next to his wife Hailey, whom he never saw, sitting at thunder matches, a man sitting outside. Before the guard Thunder in Oklahoma City could raise his eyebrows, he realized that he had an unexpected guest: Chris Paul, his former teammate and mentor.
“It was amazing. It surprised me. I had to like a double shot. I was like:” Who is it with my wife? ” -said Gilgeous -Alexander. “I got a bit, but I saw that it was Chris. And I believed,” cool “. “
Gilgeous-Alexander won his first MVP award after winning the title of scoring and bringing Thunder to 68 wins in the league. The day after his announcement, the NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, presented him with the MVP trophy before winning 118-103 Thunder over Minnesota Timberwolves in the match of the 2nd finals of the Western Conference on Thursday evening at Paycom Center. Gilgeous-Alexander and The Thunder will pass a 2: 0 series in match 3 on Saturday in Minneapolis.
Paul liked to sit down outside, watching his former teammates, Gilgeous-Alexander and NBA All-Defensive First Tame Luguentz Dort, were recognized for his or her size.
“It means everything to be here,” said Paul and Scape. “You see how Lu finally creates his first defensive team. And take this game with (wife of Gilgeous-Alexander), I am happy with him.”
Gilgeous-Alexander joined other team members behind the striker Thunder Chet Holmgren during an interview after the game broadcast in China. After the interview, Gilgeous-Alexander failed under a protective field to hug and kiss his wife before he reached the smiling Paul, who apparently had his old teammate from the team, considering that he didn’t participate in the game.
“You just lied in my face,” said Gilgeous-Alexander with a smile.
“Who?” Paul said.
Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images
Paul is the future Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer with 12-star NBA and is a member of the NBA seventy fifth anniversary team. A 20-year-old NBA veteran who finished May 40 on May 6, said and Scape that he had not yet selected his future. Paul played in all 82 matches in the regular season this season in San Antonio Spurs, but the free agent told in March and Pejzz that he would confer with his wife and two children in the season about whether he should proceed the game.
Paul was also colleagues from the team from Gilgeous-Alexander for one season from Thunder during the NBA season 2019-2020, to which Pandemia Coronavirus affected. In addition to Paweł, it was the first season of Gilgeous-Alexander from Thunder. Los Angeles Clippers was replaced by Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari and five sorts of draft in the first round in Thunder on July 10, 2019 for NBA striker All-Star Paul George.
Paweł enjoyed the mentoring of Gilgeous-Alexander and Dort. In addition to sharing the defense field, it often happened that Gilgeous-Alexander alongside Paweł during the NBA Bubble in Orlando, Florida in 2020. From this one season, Paul became not only a mentor of Gilgeous-Alexander, but a close friend. Gilgeous-Alexander is considered one of the five NBA players in the second season “Start Five” Netflix, and Paul should play a repetitive role due to their relationship.
“He was great, not only as an older brother, a mentor, but he is like a friend,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “There is all the time what you possibly can resist. He was the first guy in my life that I used to be close, who achieved things that I need to realize. And I actually resist him on advice, but not only advice in basketball – business advice, caring for body advice, coping with family after they don’t live with you.
“There are so many things that you deal with as a NBA player, especially his caliber, which go under the radar. His tips were great, not only in matters outside the pitch, not only with all mentoring, simply being there as a friend.”
The love that Paweł has for Gilgeous-Alexander is mutual.
“This is my family.” Especially such a moment. “
Of all the councils given by Paweł Gilgeous-Alexander, the latter said that Paweł was the most respected teaching him about improving his weight-reduction plan. 26-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander said he was a restaurant junkie that loved to eat at the Cheesecake factory and fast food restaurants. Canada’s guilty pleasure was the pizza slices of domino late at night.
Paweł modified the Gilgeous-Alexander weight-reduction plan for the higher during his stay in the NBA bubble.
“When I was younger, I ate terribly,” said Gilgeous-Alexander Andcape. “He showed me how to take care of your body and eat well.”
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Paweł said that he saw the potential of Gilgeous-Alexander to the size before joining the thunder.
Gilgeous-Alexander obtained a median of 19 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists in his first season with Thunder next to Paul. Gilgeous-Alexander won his first of the three NBA ALL-STAR performances in 2023 and took second place behind the center of Denver Nuggets Center Nikola Jokic in MVP voting in 2024. But this season Gilgeous-Alexander won his first MVP award over JOKIC.
“When he was a debutant, I was really close (sports coach Clippers) Jason Powell, even though I left. And he told me about work ethics (Gilgeous-Alexander),” said Paul.
Paul was in the two finals of the Western conference and played in a single NBA final with Phoenix Suns in 2021. Gilgeous-alexander and Thunder are participating in the first finals of the franchise conference since 2016. Since moving with Seattle in 2008, Grzmot was just once in the NBA finals, and lost to Miami Heat in 2012 in 2012. Have talent to change into the first franchise champion.
While reality has only six wins from the first NBA title, Gilgeous-Alexander said that “quite easy” to concentrate on the match of the third finals of the Western conference.
“We had a habit throughout the season, focusing on the next game and worrying about what is ahead of us. It is not different in this situation,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “We are aware of where we are this season. We would hurt ourselves if we directed ourselves from what we got here. And that’s what we are prioritized.”
Paul wouldn’t be surprised if a quote from his precious student and friend. Don’t be surprised if Paul returned to Oklahoma City, supporting his younger brother if he reaches the NBA finals.
“At the end of the day, everything he cares about is winning,” said Paul.
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