By Jeph Duarte | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2024-10-21 19:00:00
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
一场载入史册的加时赛决胜盛宴
各位周一好。
昨晚我想写写周六马刺队的队内对抗赛，但却被 WNBA 总决赛第五场所深深吸引。本赛季是 WNBA 总决赛最后一次采用五局三胜制，下赛季联盟将升级为七局四胜制。
虽然今年夏天我没有看太多 WNBA 的比赛，但只要你花时间关注体育，就一定能感受到 WNBA 总决赛的热烈氛围。
前四场比赛中有三场都是通过压哨球决出的胜负，第一场更是打进了加时赛。
第五场比赛同样精彩纷呈，这是 WNBA 总决赛历史上首次出现需要通过加时赛决出胜负的“冠军点”比赛。明尼苏达森林狼队虽然掌控了上半场，但在下半场却不得不应对纽约自由人队的反击。布里安娜·斯图尔特(Breanna Stewart)在第四节制造了最扣人心弦的时刻。她先是两罚不中，错失了扳平比分的机会，但随后两罚全中，将比赛拖入加时赛。在加时赛中，她又命中两记罚球，让森林狼队无力回天。
然而，这场胜利也伴随着争议。
明尼苏达森林狼队主教练谢丽尔·里夫(Cheryl Reeve)声称她的球队被偷走了总冠军。在赛后新闻发布会上，她抗议了比赛还剩 5.2 秒时对阿兰娜·史密斯(Alanna Smith)的犯规判罚，正是这次判罚让斯图尔特走上罚球线，最终将比赛拖入加时赛。
“我知道新闻标题会是‘里夫抱怨裁判’，”里夫说，“放马过来吧，尽管放马过来——因为这该死的冠军是被偷走的。”
让我们祝贺纽约自由人队，这支 WNBA 元老球队在经历了 28 年的漫长等待后，终于捧起了总冠军奖杯。
截至本文撰写之时，纽约市政府尚未宣布何时举行胜利游行。
点击查看原文：Open Thread: New York Liberty are the 2024 WNBA champions
Open Thread: New York Liberty are the 2024 WNBA champions
A historic overtime closeout Finals extravaganza
Happy Monday.
Last night I wanted to write about Saturday’s Spurs scrimmage, but I became enthralled with Game 5 of the WNBA Finals. For the final time, the WNBA champion was determined by a best-of-five series. Next season, the league moves into a best-of-seven upgrade.
Although I hadn’t watched a lot of WNBA this summer, the energy of this WNBA Finals was unavoidable if you spend any part of your day researching sports.
Three of the four games had been determined by made or missed buzzer-beaters. Game 1 went into overtime.
Game 5 did not disappoint. It was the first closeout game in WNBA Finals history to go into overtime. While Minnesota owned the first half, they had to respond to a counter attacked from New York in the second half. Breanna Stewart caused the most nail-biting moments of the fourth quarter. She first missed two free throws that could have tied the game, only to make the next pair sending the game into overtime. She also hit two in overtime that put the game out of reach for the Minnesota Lynx.
The win did not come without controversey.
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve claimed her team had the title stolen. In her postgame news conference, she protested the foul attributed to Alanna Smith with 5.2 seconds left that sent Stewart to the line to tie and send the game inevitably into overtime.
“I know the headlines will be, ‘Reeve cries foul,’ “ Reeve said. “Bring it on. Bring it on — because this (expletive) was stolen from us.”
Congratulations to the New York Liberty, one of the original WNBA teams, who had not won a championship during their twenty-eight year run.
No timetable announced for a New York victory parade as of the time oft this writing.
By Jeph Duarte, via Pounding The Rock