Breanna Stewart Says the Refs Told Her There Was No Timeout. The Pool Report Says the Opposite.
Atlanta beat New York 101-98 in overtime to take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five semifinal. The final 4.3 seconds have become a formal dispute between a franchise and a league.
Angel Reese hit two free throws to put the Dream up three. The Liberty did not call a reset timeout. They threw a long pass toward Marine Johannes, it was tipped to Breanna Stewart, and her shot at the buzzer missed.
Two Accounts That Cannot Both Be True
Stewart said she asked official Kevin Fahy whether New York had a reset timeout. She said Fahy checked with crew chief Fatou Cissoko-Stephens and told her no.
“This is not blaming the refs, but when I ask both refs if we have a reset timeout at the end, and they tell us no,” Stewart said.
The officials’ pool report tells it differently. It says Stewart was standing behind Fahy when he confirmed with his partner, between Reese’s free throws, that New York did have a reset available. It also says there was “no direct communication” with the Liberty about it.
Cissoko-Stephens put the responsibility back on the team: “teams are responsible for managing and tracking their timeout usage throughout the game.”
New York Has Filed an Inquiry
Per ESPN, citing sources, the Liberty have filed an official inquiry with the WNBA. No answer has come back, and the league has not issued a public statement.
This is the part worth being careful about. Nobody has established that an official made an error. Two accounts exist, both attributed, and they conflict on whether Stewart was told anything at all.
What is not in dispute is that New York had a reset timeout available and did not use it. That is the fact underneath all of this, and it is the fact that makes the inquiry awkward.
The Timeout Probably Did Not Cost Them the Game
CBS’s Jack Maloney made the point that even a successful reset likely produces a tying three and a second overtime rather than a win. That is the realistic ceiling of the complaint.
And the Liberty had other problems. Sabrina Ionescu threw a pass into the fifth row while New York was up three. Atlanta won this game without Allisha Gray, who was out with a hand injury, and with Rhyne Howard shooting 5-of-20.
Stewart was magnificent, with 35 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. Reese and Jordin Canada each scored 23 for Atlanta, Reese adding seven rebounds and two blocks, Canada adding eight assists.
New York plays Game 3 at home down 0-2, and no WNBA team has ever come back from that deficit. Filing a complaint about a timeout they had is not how this gets fixed. Guarding Jordin Canada might be.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
