wnba finals 2023 the time is now for breanna stewart new york liberty against las vegas aces - ESPN

NEW YORK — Breanna Stewart and the New York Liberty kept their championship hopes alive with Sunday's 87-73 Game 3 win in the WNBA Finals.

And Sue Bird was watching.

The WNBA legend had been part of many Finals wins with Stewart when they won the 2018 and 2020 championships together with the Seattle Storm. But now, Bird watched without a jersey from her courtside seat at Barclays Center as Stewart led her new team to its first Finals win since 1999 and, perhaps, one step closer to the franchise's first WNBA title.

Stewart has played plenty in this setting, and has thrived as a two-time Finals MVP. But the circumstances are more unfamiliar than meets the eye: Not only are she and the Liberty trying to claw back from down 0-2, but she is the leader of this team.

That leadership aspect is where Stewart, named the 2023 MVP last month, believes she has grown the most in her first season with the Liberty. New York will continue to count on Stewart's intangibles and tangibles as the Finals resume Wednesday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN), when the Liberty hope to force a winner-take-all Game 5 on Friday.

«Being in Seattle and knowing that Sue was there, you know that you have someone to kind of fall back on a little bit and you know she helped get me to where I was,» Stewart said Tuesday. «And now coming here, I'm really taking ownership amongst this team and helping anybody in any way I can. It's something that I can still get better at, but I've been embracing it and knowing that I don't want to leave anything left unsaid.»

One of sport's greatest champions, Stewart was ushered into a leadership role when she arrived in New York with a tall task at hand: helping a team with so much talent and new pieces mesh together. Stewart, returning