Nine seconds remaining. Nine dribbles off the inbound pass.
One shot — the shot of a lifetime.
Two hundred text messages later, Sabrina Ionescu, 28, has only just finished catching up.
“I responded [to all of them on Wednesday] night,” Ionescu said of the bevy of congratulations that followed her game-winner, as reported by Kareem Copeland of the Washington Post. “I’m a big responder because it’s all people that have supported me.”
Ionescu’s 28-foot dagger, in the dying seconds of Wednesday night’s Game 3 of the WNBA finals, caught nothing but net and propelled New York over Minnesota by a score of 80-77.
On Friday, the Liberty will attempt to close out the best-of-five series and secure their first championship in franchise history.
First though, there were messages to answer.
“Whether I win or lose, people are always texting me,” said Ionescu, per Copeland. “My husband was getting mad. He was like, ‘Come on. Get to bed.’ I was like, ‘No, I have to respond to everyone and just tell everyone, ‘Thank you.’”
“The outpouring of support that I’ve gotten from all the people that are in my circle, it means the world to me— every single text message and phone call, just knowing that it takes the village…” she said.
Among those villagers was the king of the logo-3.
“Steph Curry left me a really funny voice memo of him just like screaming into the phone,” Ionescu shared on SportsCenter. “And that was funny because we’ve just had a great relationship and he’s been a big mentor of mine.”
If the Liberty prevail tonight (8 p.m., on ESPN), there will be more messages to answer.
If.
“I’ve turned the page,” Ionescu said. “I can’t stay on that high too long because the job’s not finished, and we’ve got one more game.”
“And then once we finish this,” she added, “then I’ll probably watch it a million more times.”