Bahamian women’s basketball professional player Jonquel ‘JJ’ Jones and the New York Liberty have hit a bit of a hot stretch, winning a fourth consecutive game in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) on Saturday.
Jones and the Liberty came from behind to turn back the Indiana Fever, 83-75, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Jones hit the first basket of the game for the Liberty, and didn’t score again until midway through the second period on two free shots. Both teams struggled to put the ball in the basket in the opening half, but the visitors persevered, holding on to a 25-21 lead after the first quarter, and a 40-37 lead at the break.
After taking an early lead in the first quarter, the Fever got out in transition and kept pushing the pace in the second. They got up by as many as nine points in the second quarter, before settling for the-three-point lead at halftime.
Jones had just four points in the first half, but contributed three assists and two rebounds. By the end of the game, she was just short of a double-double, finishing with eight points, 12 rebounds and four assists.
The Liberty have now won four straight games, and have a 7-4 win/loss record on the season, fifth in the WNBA Standings, but just two games behind the front-running Minnesota Lynx (9-2). The Fever dropped to 5-5.
The Bahamian behemoth, now in her 11th year in the league, is averaging 13.1 points and 9.5 rebounds while shooting a career-low 42.2 percent from the field and 34.9 percent from three-point range.
The Liberty fell behind by as many as 12 points in the second half on Saturday, but Jones and the Liberty refused to bow down to their Eastern Conference counterparts. The Liberty ended the third quarter on a 9-0 scoring run to trim the deficit to just three points, 57-54, entering the fourth quarter.
The Liberty took the lead with four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter on two free shots from Breanna Stewart, going ahead 68-66, and they never looked back. They went on to led by 11, and outscored the Fever, 15-9, the rest of the way.
Stewart had a game-high 30 points for the Liberty. Satou Sabally scored 13 off the bench, Pauline Astier dropped in 12 and Jones and Marine Johannes scored eight apiece.
Kelsey Mitchell scored 21 points for the Fever. Monique Billings added 15, Aliyah Boston contributed 13, and Caitlin Clark added 10.
Jones and the Liberty will go on the road and play the Connecticut Sun in their next game, scheduled for this evening at 7 p.m. at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. During the pregame show, the Sun will honor Jones, who spent the first seven years of her professional basketball career with that organization.
Jones will have her No. 35 jersey retired by the Connecticut Sun this evening, who will spend their final season in the state of Connecticut in 2026.
During Jones’ tenure with the Sun, she earned her first and only league Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, and also won the league’s Most Improved Player Award, the WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year Award, was a three-time WNBA rebounds leader, a two-time WNBA All-Defensive First Team selection, a WNBA All-Defensive Second Team selection, and had multiple all-star and WNBA First and Second Team selections.
Additionally, Jones powered the Sun to the WNBA Finals in 2019 and again in 2022 before being traded to the Liberty in 2023, where she went on to win her first WNBA title just one season later.
Following their game with the Sun, the Liberty will remain on the road and face the Atlanta Dream at Gateway Center in College Park, Georgia, on Thursday. That game will start at 7:30 p.m.