Breanna Stewart reportedly avoided significant leg injury, will travel with Liberty on upcoming road trip
Liberty All-Star Breanna Stewart reportedly avoided a significant lower-leg injury after leaving early during Saturday's loss to the Los Angeles Sparks. That's according to Madeline Kenney of the New York Post, who reported Sunday that imaging revealed the absence of a significant injury.
The nature of Stewart's injury is unclear from the report. But the news is certainly welcome in New York as the Liberty seek to repeat as WNBA champions.
Per the report, Stewart will travel with the team for New York's upcoming four-game road trip that features a potential WNBA Finals preview against the league-leading Minnesota Lynx. Stewart's status for that matchup on Wednesday is far from certain. Per Kenney, the Liberty plan "to give her time to fully recover."
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Whether she's back on the court for the road trip or later, the report indicates that Stewart will be back in time for the stretch run of the season, which concludes on Sept. 11.
Scary moment after apparent non-contact injury
Stewart pulled up in the opening minutes of Saturday's game and asked to be taken out with what appeared to be a non-contact injury.
She did not return to the game and was eventually ruled out at halftime.
Liberty coach Sandy Brondello told reporters after the game that there was no update on Stewart's status.
"Hopefully she'll be OK," Brondello said in her postgame news conference.
Saturday's 101-99 loss to the Sparks on Saturday was the Liberty's first in six games to drop them to 17-7. They remain comfortably in first place in the Eastern Conference, three games ahead of the second-place Atlanta Dream (14-10). The Lynx maintain the best record in the WNBA (22-4), four games ahead of the Liberty in the race for home-court advantage in a potential Finals matchup.
Stewart, a seven-time All-WNBA selection and two-time MVP, is key to New York's hopes of maintaining its edge in the East and repeating as WNBA champion.
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