What Sue Bird said about winning her 3rd WNBA title
"This is probably going to be one of the defining moments of my career."
For Sue Bird, it was a third championship and further proof that she is one of the game’s all-time greats. For Elena Delle Donne, it was a loss, but it was also a chance to get an up-close look at where she wants to be. And for Breanna Stewart, it was the first of what could be a long string of titles.
But to Stewart, who scored a game-high 30 points in the Seattle Storm’s 98-82 victory over the Washington Mystics in a series-clinching Game 3 of the WNBA Finals on Wednesday, the key was treating it like any other day.
“Honestly, it didn’t feel like my first WNBA finals closeout game,” she said of her approach to her first finals. “I think the way I looked at it was just another game.”
It was that attitude that helped lead to four NCAA championships at Connecticut — where she earned four Final Four Most Valuable Player Awards — and propelled her to the pinnacle in her third year as a pro. She also claimed the WNBA Finals MVP Award.
Stewart, 24, was also the league’s regular season MVP, and she averaged 25.7 points a game as the Storm swept the best-of-five finals.
While the win felt like just the start for Stewart, it was something of a career capper for Bird, the highly-decorated point guard who also won championships with the Storm in 2004 and 2010. She has not announced any plans to retire, but the oldest active player in the league sounded like someone who sensed the end was at least near after the game.
“This is probably going to be one of the defining moments of my career,” Bird said. “To have played however many years I’ve been playing, to have won in all these places, but then to do it at the end in such a way that was different from all the others, it’s really incredible.”
Bird, 37, won two NCAA championships at Connecticut and has won titles around the world as a professional. She led the Storm offense with 10 assists in Game 3 while also contributing 10 points over 32 minutes.
The Storm also got 29 points and 14 rebounds from Natasha Howard, who won a title as a reserve for the Minnesota Lynx last season and now has earned one as a starter, as well.
For Delle Donne, the loss came after she fought through a knee injury sustained in the semifinals. She scored 23 points in Game 3, and averaged 16.7 for the series, but despite Kristi Toliver chipping in with 22 points, Washington simply did not have enough talent to keep up with Seattle in the Mystics’ first finals appearance.
After trailing by 69-53 entering the fourth quarter, the Mystics rallied to within five points at 72-67 on a 3-pointer by Tierra Ruffin-Pratt with 6:49 remaining, but Stewart was fouled by Delle Donne while making a jump shot from the free-throw line on the next possession and converted the three-point play, kicking off an 8-0 run to put Seattle back in control.
Asked to reflect on where the Mystics are as a team, Delle Donne seemed determined to get back to the finals while acknowledging that the game is only getting more competitive as young teams start to blossom. But now she knows how much better they will have to be to win it all.
“We’re not just going to be satisfied that we got here this season,” she said. “We know we’ve got to improve because everybody else is.”
