Liberty ousted by white-hot Wash.
The Liberty couldn’t find a way to stop the hot hand and were burned with a season-ending playoff loss Sunday at the Garden.
Kristi Toliver scored 32 points, hitting a WNBA playoff-record nine 3-pointers, to lead the Washington Mystics to an 82-68 victory.
The Liberty were led by Tina Charles, who had 18 points. It’s the second consecutive season that New York was a three-seed and lost its first postseason game.
“It’s disappointing that we’re not getting over the hump,” Charles said. “You wish you could have boxed out or made that extra pass or not made that turnover. You always have those thoughts.”
Washington found itself down 13 points in the first half before rallying to trail 41-35 at the break. Then Toliver took over. She scored 16 points in the third quarter, hitting all four of her 3-pointers in the period. She could only shrug and smile as the fourth one went in to give the Mystics a 57-46 advantage with 2:48 left in the third. She set the Mystics franchise record for points in a game by the end of the third quarter.
That 3-pointer, her eighth, also broke the previous WNBA record for 3-pointers made in a playoff game. New York could never recover. The Mystics will face the Lynx with Game 1 of the best-of-five series in Minnesota on Tuesday night. This is as far as the Mystics have gone in the playoffs since 2002 — the last time they made it out of the opening round of the postseason.