Liberty’s transformation into superteam is now fully validated

This was the Liberty’s reward for ambition.

It came covered in sterling silver, by way of Tiffany’s, as the confetti flew and streamers covered the court at Barclays Center, as the 18,090 delirious witnesses to a basketball breakthrough supplied a roar that could bridge Brooklyn and everyone watching women’s sports around the world: the WNBA trophy.

It was passed from the owners who moved this whole triumphant show to Brooklyn, was shepherded by the head coach hired to lend her championship pedigree, and finally was held aloft by the players who delivered an historic, 67-62 overtime victory Sunday over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 5 of the Finals.

Now the capital of women’s basketball, at long last, isn’t pinned in Storrs, Conn., or Columbia, S.C., or Las Vegas. It is here, in New York City, to the delight of a constituency in every stripe of seafoam.

“To be able to bring a championship to New York, the first-ever in franchise history, it’s an incredible feeling,” Breanna Stewart said. “And I can’t wait to continue to celebrate with the city.”

It didn’t come easy. It didn’t come cheap. It wasn’t pretty. This was no one’s advertisement for the aesthetics of the product, as earlier passages of the Finals had been.

The Liberty had to rally from a 12-point first-half deficit. Stewart (4-for-15) and Sabrina Ionescu (a shocking 1-for-19) had abysmal shooting nights. The team didn’t hit a 3-pointer until late in the fourth quarter, and they wound up a combined 2-for-23 from deep.

On this night, it was just championship mettle, in all its blood-and-loose-teeth-on-the-asphalt glory, the kind that would make the ’90s Knicks blush. They went to a bully-ball lineup and held the Lynx to 28 points in the final 25 minutes.

The Liberty are a fitting champion to cap a year of remarkable growth for their league, a team in the ascendant image of the modern WNBA. They have investment from Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, who took up the torch five years ago and set about building a world-class organization.

“Look what can happen when you have an intention, and you put care and resources toward it,” Wu Tsai said during the celebration.

They have fashioned an electric home atmosphere at Barclays, which thumps with the elevated decibels of a passionate fan base and bounces along to the trunk-raising stylings of Ellie the Elephant.

“I knew that no matter what, the city was gonna have our back,” Stewart said afterward. “And they showed up, and they showed out, and they continued to be there for us when we needed.”

They attracted a transformational free agent in Stewart, who reversed her foul-line miss from the Game 1 collapse with a clutch pair of free throws to tie the game with 5 seconds left in regulation.

They cultivated a homegrown star in Ionescu, who hit the iconic game-winner in Game 3.

Over the course of four-plus years, they patiently rounded out a roster (signing Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, trading for Jonquel Jones, importing Leonie Fiebich) without discernible holes.

Jones and Stewart, the two pillars of the Liberty’s 2022-23 offseason, embraced at the buzzer.

“We talked about it so much — coming together and what we envisioned and what we wanted to do in New York and what we could do,” said Jones, who was named Finals MVP. “And to be able to pull it off and accomplish your dream, and it’s so freaking hard to do, it just means a lot.”

And it’s a testament to the organization that they still had Nyara Sabally up their sleeves. The second-year pro, who was drafted in 2022 and afforded a year to get healthy, swung the game with her 13 points, seven rebounds and 17 minutes of energy off the bench.

It was a culmination.

The Liberty were here in the beginning, a WNBA original, and had waited 28 seasons to call themselves champions.

They came from the bottom — from playing 2019 home games in the minor league Westchester County Center, from going 2-20 in the 2020 “bubble” season.

They were assembled to reach the top, labeled a superteam. It would have meant nothing without a banner. The project was validated on a night of champagne and celebration in Brooklyn.

“Let’s not stop at one, though,” head coach Sandy Brondello said. “Let’s go for two.”