WNBA playoffs 2023: How Liberty, Wings can complete sweeps - ESPN

Veteran leadership is always big during the WNBA playoffs, but the league's next generation is making its presence felt now. Three recent draft lottery picks were at the top of their games Friday in the WNBA playoffs and will try to do more of the same Tuesday as the first round continues.

Guard Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in 2020, hopes to help the No. 2 seed New York Liberty close out their first-round series against the No. 7 Washington Mystics in Game 2 (7 p.m., ESPN/ESPN App) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Her former Oregon Ducks teammate and 2020 No. 2 pick Satou Sabally hopes to do the same for the No. 4 Dallas Wings against the No. 5 Atlanta Dream and Rhyne Howard, who was the No. 1 pick in 2022. Their Game 2 tips at 9 p.m. ET (ESPN/ESPN App) at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas.

On Wednesday at Target Center in Minneapolis, the No. 6 Minnesota Lynx — with rookies Diamond Miller (No. 2 pick) and Dorka Juhasz (No. 16) in the starting lineup — attempt to upset the No. 3 Connecticut Sun in Game 3 of their series (7 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App).

The Liberty-Mystics series features three former MVPs in New York's Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones and Washington's Elena Delle Donne. But Ionescu was the leading scorer in Game 1 on Friday, with 29 points and seven 3-pointers.

In Friday's second game, Howard went one better, hitting eight 3s on the way to 36 points, both WNBA records for a player in her postseason debut. Still, it wasn't enough against the Wings, who rallied behind Sabally's 32 points to erase a 20-point deficit and win by 12.

Howard, the former Kentucky Wildcats star, said afterward that individual numbers didn't mean much to her because the Dream lost. Still, having scored 19 of her points in the