Brittney Griner impresses on her emotional return to the WNBA All-Star Game as Jewell Loyd’s record 31 points helps Breanna Stewart’s team win
- Loyd hit ten 3-pointers, amassing a record All-Star Game score
- Both teams combined for 232 shot attempts, including 137 3-point attempts
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Brittney Griner made a powerful and emotional return to the WNBA’s Mid-Season Showcase event.
She scored her team’s first six points, threw two dunks, and finished Saturday night’s league All-Star Game with 18 points.
The sold-out crowd roared as Griner was introduced, and, visibly moved by the ovation, she tapped her heart with her right hand.
There was no doubt that a year after his violent absence from that event, Griner was the star of the show.
“I didn’t think I would be here today,” Griner said. “Everyone who sent the letters and the love meant a lot to me.”
Brittney Griner put on a show as she helped Team Stewart win the WNBA All-Star Game
Griner hit a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds in the 143-127 win
Griner led Team Stewart, led by the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, to a 143-127 victory over Team Wilson, led by the Aces’ A’ja Wilson.
Team Stewart’s Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd broke the all-star game scoring record with 31 points and set the new record with a pass from Griner. Maya Moore and Kelsey Plum had the previous record with 30 points each. Loyd received the MVP award for the game.
Plum even equaled her own record with 30 points, becoming one of four aces to line up for Team Wilson, who received a loud ovation from the home crowd at the pregame introduction.
Griner was being held in Russia around this time last year on drug-related charges, sparking international outrage that she was being unfairly detained. The WNBA named her an honor starter, with each player wearing her number 42 jersey in the second half of the previous year’s game.
This time, Griner was actually in the starting XI – the only one with that jersey number – and overshadowed almost everything that happened on the pitch.
Team Stewart focused on Griner from the start. With 3:50 left in the first quarter, she dunk a pass from Stewart. Griner also had a dunk just 25 seconds into the second half.
“I called my knees and talked to them and gave them a little pep talk,” Griner, 32, said of her dunks.
At one point in the first quarter, Griner challenged point guard Chelsea Gray of Team Wilson’s Aces, but Gray drove past the Phoenix Mercury nine-time All-Star and dropped from the height of the glass in an inverted layup.
Jewell Loyd led Team Stewart, scoring ten 3-pointers for 31 points that night
At the first media break, Griner was shown on the video board sitting on the bench with the words “WELCOME BACK BRITTNEY GRINER” written on the screen under her face.
Griner was among the players who wore microphones during the game and joked after missing a threesome that she “got something in my eye.”
The game was played with a 20-second shot clock instead of the usual 24, two four-pointers were added on each side of the field, and there were no free throws. The teams scored twelve four-point throws together.
New Yorker Sabrina Ionescu, representing Team Stewart, scored all three attempts from four distances in the first half, repeating her exceptional shooting from the previous day. Ionescu set a WNBA and NBA record with 37 points out of a possible 40 in the 3-point contest. She finished the race with 18 points.
Sue Bird, Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles were among the ex-WNBA players in attendance, with Fowles wearing Napheesa Collier’s Minnesota Lynx jersey.
Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Dwyane Wade were among those who watched the NBA games. Wade acquires an ownership interest in Chicago Sky.