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Sabrina Ionescu celebrates with 2x NBA champion after emphatic win over Indiana
New York Liberty All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu celebrated their 91-80 home victory over the Indiana Fever on Saturday with NBA legend and champion Pau Gasol. The Spaniard was courtside with his family to catch the game.
The 26-year-old former top overall pick (2020) approached and exchanged plesantries with the two-time NBA champion, who incidentally is also a WNBA ambassador.
Watch Ionescu's meet-up with Gasol and his family following their victory below:
Pau Gasol and Sabrina Ionescu share a special bond with the late Laker great Kobe Bryant.
She had Bryant as one of her mentors before the NBA legend expired in 2020 at the age of 41. Ionescu also helped in coaching the basketball team of Bryant's daughter Gigi, who also died along with his father.
For his part, Gasol was a teammate of Bryant for seven seasons where they won back-to-back NBA titles in 2009 and 2010 and developed a deep friendship.
Meanwhile, in beating the Fever on Saturday in New York, the Liberty raced to their third straight win in the recently started WNBA season.
Breanna Stewart top-scored for the Liberty with 24 points, to go along with five rebounds, four steals and three bloccks.Jonquel Jones had 14 points and 12 rebounds, while Ionescu had 12 points, all from three, and five assists in 29 minutes.
Rookie Caitlin Clark led the Fever with 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 4-of-10 from three. She also had eight assists and six rebounds but had eight turnovers.
New York next plays on Monday against the Seattle Storm at home.
Sabrina Ionescu fakes out Caitlin Clark in New York
In helping the New York Liberty notch up back-to-back wins over the Indiana Fever on Saturday, Sabrina Ionescu also had some highlight-reel moments, including a nifty fake-out of Fever rookie Caitlin Clark from three.
The play took place at the 4:12 mark of the second quarter, which saw the Liberty guard lose Clark by faking a pass from three and draining the shot to extend their lead to 50-29. She did the shrug after.
While they beat Clark and the Fever for the second time this season, Sabrina Ionescu is among those who expect great things from Clark moving forward.
Heading into their game on Saturday, she said that she liked what she has seen so far from the WNBA rookie and advised her to just continue improving and do her thing.
Ionescu said, by way of reporter Russell Steinberg on X:
"Every rookie is gonna come in and kind of just have adversity from the beginning. It's just a lot different than college. So, my advice to any rookie is to just continue to grind and to stay with it, figuring out ways that you can continue to get better..."
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