The New York Liberty opened their 30th WNBA season with a record-setting 106-75 victory over the Connecticut Sun on Friday night at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
Breanna Stewart led the short-handed Liberty with 31 points and 10 rebounds. The forward became the second-fastest player in WNBA history to reach 6,000 career points. New York’s 106 total points also established a franchise record for a season opener.<\/p>\n
The 31-point margin marked the largest victory for a Liberty head coach on debut, securing Chris DeMarco his first regular-season win. New York overwhelmed Connecticut early, scoring 36 points in the first quarter. This represented the team’s highest-scoring opening period since 2023.<\/p>\n
Veteran guard Betnijah Laney-Hamilton provided the standout moment of the match. She played her first regular-season game since missing the entire 2025 season following left knee surgery. Early in the contest, she executed a sharp dribble move that sent Sun rookie Gianna Kneepkens to the floor. Laney-Hamilton then scored a jump shot, igniting a sellout crowd that included Liberty Ring of Honour member Kym Hampton<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 32-year-old Laney-Hamilton finished with 12 points and four assists, shooting 57.1 percent from the field. For Kneepkens, the match served as a stark introduction to professional basketball. The rookie previously led UCLA to the 2025-26 National Championship. She recorded seven points and five rebounds in 13 minutes off the bench.<\/p>\n New York will attempt to maintain their winning form as they celebrate three decades in the league. Connecticut returns to Mohegan Sun Arena for their home opener on May 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Liberty opened their 30th WNBA season with a record-setting 106-75 victory over the Connecticut Sun…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":783843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[5336,2472,93429,1520,50,15534,62,77462,8800,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-783842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-breanna-stewart","9":"tag-connecticut-sun","10":"tag-gianna-kneepkens","11":"tag-new-york-liberty","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sabrina-ionescu","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tst-los-angeles","16":"tag-ucla-bruins","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116543607768877436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}