Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart added to her extensive trophy collection Tuesday night with a second WNBA title and a second WNBA Finals MVP award. A year ago at this time, she was recovering from an Achilles injury that forced her to miss the 2019 WNBA season.
Stewart had 26 points and four rebounds as the No. 2-seeded Storm completed a three-game sweep of the 1-seed Las Vegas Aces with a 92-59 victory at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. The 33-point margin of victory was the largest in WNBA Finals history.
Stewart, who turned 26 in August, was the unanimous choice for MVP. Only four other players have won two Finals MVP awards: the Houston Comets’ Cynthia Cooper, the Los Angeles Sparks‘ Lisa Leslie, the Phoenix Mercury‘s Diana Taurasi and the Minnesota Lynx‘s Sylvia Fowles.
“I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be back to where I was,” Stewart said of her fears from the Achilles injury she sustained while playing in Europe in April 2019. “But to be here and see myself playing like this and having so much potential going forward, it’s exciting but also really appreciating what we were able to do this year.”
Stewart, who shot 10-of-14 from the floor in Game 3, had her sixth consecutive WNBA Finals game with at least 20 points. That is the longest such streak in history, passing Cooper, who had five in a row for Houston from 1997 to 1999, and Angel McCoughtry, who had five straight for the Atlanta Dream from 2010 to 2011.
The 6-foot-4 Stewart averaged 19.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.6 assists in the regular season. In the postseason, those numbers were 25.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists.