Keep an eye on Breanna Stewarts minutes with Liberty in home stretch

MINNEAPOLIS — The Liberty are closing out the regular season on a stretch of four games in six days, with three against playoff teams. The Liberty took care of business with an impressive showing in Friday’s 93-81 win against the league-leading Minnesota Lynx.They head to Toronto to play the Tempo on Sunday before returning home for a two-game series with the Atlanta Dream.  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Madeline Kenney about all things Liberty and WNBA.

The schedule and unsettled playoff positioning allow little room for rest. Breanna Stewart’s minutes, in particular, will be worth monitoring down the stretch. Stewart has played in all but one game this season.At 32, she’s logged the sixth-most minutes in the league this season. She led Team USA in playing time, averaging 23.1 minutes across six games at the FIBA Women’s World Cup earlier this month. Not even a week removed from guiding the Americans to a fifth consecutive World Cup gold medal, Stewart looked like her usual self Friday. She logged 38 minutes to record a team-high 24 points and 10 rebounds in the win. Sunday’s game against Toronto might be the only time to lighten Stewart’s workload before the playoffs. Sabrina Ionescu was pleased with the way the Liberty didn’t waste any time jumping back into the season after the break. “The way we just played together hard, locked in for 40 minutes and weathered their runs and I’m really proud of the group,” she said.

“Obviously we had a lot of players that weren’t here and it’s hard.Everyone’s traveled from across the world playing in really high-intensity games, but to be able to come in and be pros and put this game at the forefront of what we’re doing is super important to us.”  Sign up for Madeline Kenney's Inside the Liberty, a weekly Sports+ newsletter.

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