The way Breanna Stewart slid across the paint, slicing between Liberty and Lynx players who complicated her route, to knock away Dorka Juhasz’s shot won’t serve as her flashiest block of the season.
That — in all likelihood — is still reserved for June 22, with Stephanie Talbot the recipient and Stewart redirecting the ball out of bounds despite the Sparks forward catching a pass at the elbow as Stewart crossed the mid-court line.
But this was still timely.
The Liberty’s advantage had been trimmed from 17 to six with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter of Game 2 of the WNBA Finals.
When Juhasz rose, Stewart turned her right hand — the rest of her body almost parallel to Juhasz — and blocked the shot.
Seconds later, Stewart settled in the corner and sank a jumper.
Stewart’s defensive presence has always accompanied her offense, with her numbers in 2024 — from blocks per game (1.3) to steals (1.7) to total defensive win shares (2.8) — nearly identical to last year.
There are the six all-defensive team honors. The spots on the first-team in each of the last three seasons. But the context this year is different.
She helped stabilize the Liberty defense when Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed time with a knee injury.
That continued in the Finals while guarding Lynx star Napheesa Collier, even with Laney-Hamilton back.
And in that chaotic rush Sunday, one that helped the Liberty eventually even the series, Stewart flashed the latest glimpse of being a two-way player by impacting a sequence outside of her primary assignment.
She added a Finals record seven steals to the block, 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
“She really is a two-way player,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said of Stewart in June, days after her six-block game. “She can score, but just what she does defensively and her activity, you’ve seen her start on a guard or guard the post or we move her around many different times.”
In the Finals, Stewart’s defense has helped the Liberty contain Collier — on track to set a record for scoring in a single postseason — and limit her to 37 points across the two games after Collier had scored 26 or more points in all but two postseason games.
After Game 1, Stewart knew what to expect. Collier’s desire to drive left.
The instinct to shoot over the right shoulder.
The pump fake that Collier will use “a million times.”
Stewart wanted to pick up Collier earlier and make her former UConn teammate “take tough shots that she doesn’t want to take,” Stewart said following the Liberty’s 80-66 win Sunday.
Those contributions won’t generate the same buzz as the blocks, though.
The night of her chase-down block against Talbot, she finished with six.
She had another three in the playoff opener. Another four in the clincher against the Aces to get back to the Finals.
“Honestly, it’s just like an instinct thing,” Stewart said of blocking shots shortly after her six-block game. “It’s just something that I’ve been able to kinda do for a long time. Sometimes, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get it … but just making sure that I’m able to be in place. Whether I block shots or not, it’s a tough contest.”
Early in the season, Stewart’s defense helped compensate for a brutal shooting stretch that all but ruined the chance for a potential MVP encore.
She shot just 18.2 percent from beyond the arc in May — and only bumped that number up to 26.8 percent by the time July arrived.
The slump didn’t worry Stewart in the moment, and by the time the playoffs arrived, Stewart averaged 20 points per game and finished third in the MVP voting.
“Obviously, she’s great with the basketball, but I’ve never seen her move without the ball as well as I saw her in Seattle [when broadcasting a Liberty-Storm game this year],” longtime WNBA coach Dan Hughes, who coached Stewart with the Storm, told The Post.
So as the series shifts back to Minnesota, the Liberty will rely on Stewart to once again pace their offense. That’s what made her MVP last year. But Stewart’s defense — the other component of her two-way game — will play a critical role, too.
The highlight-reel blocks only accomplish so much. The ability to limit someone such as Collier on the Finals stage, and replicate that over and over again, would provide a lasting impact different from other years.