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In 1999, Ray Castoldi, the Garden\u2019s organist, asked Jett and the Blackhearts to record \u201cUnfinished Business,\u201d a song he had written for the Liberty after their crushing finals loss that year. Jett not only cut the track the following season, but filmed a video with the team and performed the song at halftime<\/a> during a game.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain the energy,\u201d Jett said of those early years. \u201cI was on the outside looking in, but they made me feel like I was on the inside. It was a fun, really inclusive time.\u201d<\/p>\n Jett feels a natural kinship with athletes, who, like longtime touring bands, travel with a tight-knit team and are expected to perform on command. And like the athletes in the W.N.B.A., who have carved out a professional place for themselves while expanding the public\u2019s idea of what women are capable of doing, Jett broke down boundaries in music: battling to prove to record labels and crowds that she deserved to be a frontwoman despite her prodigious talent. \u201cWe\u2019re people that could relate to what each other was doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Crystal Robinson, a former Liberty forward with whom Jett remains close, said the recognition was mutual: \u201cFor us, it was just the fact that she supported us,\u201d she said. \u201cShe was fighting that female battle before we started. We had this camaraderie.\u201d<\/p>\n Jett\u2019s return to the Liberty on Sunday was an overdue homecoming. Before the game, she nursed a beer as she held court with Wicks and Robinson at a table in the Barclays\u2019 V.I.P. lounge. The recently retired W.N.B.A. star Sue Bird came by to pay her respects, as did the actors Jason Sudeikis and Michael Shannon, who portrayed Kim Fowley, the manager of Jett\u2019s band, the Runaways, in a 2010 film<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the restaurant emptied before game time, Jett got restless. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re missing stuff!\u201d she said giddily, before heading toward the court to find her seat. Just before tipoff, Becky Hammon, the Aces head coach who had been a Liberty guard in her playing days, spotted Jett taking a photo of her from across the court and struck a quick pose.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n