Controversy embroiled the Atlanta Dream's thrilling 101-98 overtime victory over the New York Liberty in Game 2 of their semifinal series after Breanna Stewart accused the officials of incorrectly telling the Liberty that they had no timeouts remaining on the final play of overtime. Crew chief Fatou Cissoko-Stephens denied Stewart's version of events in the pool report, stating that there was "no direct communication" between the officials and the Liberty.
The WNBA has reportedly opened an investigation into the matter. Stewart spoke to reporters on Friday ahead of Game 3 and expressed her frustration with the situation.
"You want to have respect between players and refs, and players and the league, and all these things. In order to have respect, you need to build trust. And building trust comes from being honest," she said. "And putting me in a position to question my integrity is really disappointing. I know who I am and what I stand for and what I heard. That's that."
Regardless of what exactly transpired, the Liberty are now down 2-0 to the Dream in the best-of-five matchup, and no team in WNBA history has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit. As the Liberty try to figure out a way to get back into this series in Game 3 at home on Friday, here's a closer look at the disputed end to Game 2.
With 4.3 seconds remaining in the extra frame, Angel Reese hit two clutch free throws to push the Dream's lead to three points. The Liberty had the ball and a reset timeout, however, and had sent the game to overtime with a brilliant after-timeout play that freed up Marine Fauthoux for a 3-pointer.
So they still had hope -- at least it seemed.
The Liberty did not call a timeout and instead tried to throw a long pass to Marine Johannès near midcourt. The ball was tipped, and even though it somehow wound up in Stewart's hands, her heave at the buzzer was nowhere close. In the initial aftermath, it appeared that first-year head coach Chris DeMarco had made a major blunder.
But during the postgame press conference, Stewart explained why the Liberty did not call a timeout.
"This is not blaming the refs, but when I ask both refs if we have a reset timeout and they tell us 'no,' and then we leave the game with a reset timeout, it's pretty frustrating," Stewart said. "Like, yeah, OK, I kinda got a good look at the end, but would just love to have some clarity on that situation as well."
"I asked [official] Kevin [Fahy], I said, 'do we have a reset timeout?' And he said, 'I'm gonna check at the table,'" Stewart added. "He looked to [official] Fatou [Cissoko-Stephens], and she said, 'no,' then [Fahy] told me 'no.' Who knows what would have happened at the end of the game, but we would have had hopefully a better shot."
"Yeah, same thing," DeMarco said, when asked for his perspective on the situation. "They just said we didn't have it. Yeah, multiple staff members. It is what it is. We gotta demand more, but it is what it is."
In the pool report, which did not happen until well after an hour after the final buzzer, Cissoko-Stephens confirmed that the Liberty had a reset timeout available and refuted Stewart's version of events. "Stewart was standing behind referee Fahy when he confirmed with his partner between Reese's pentalty free throws that New York did indeed have a reset timeout remaining," Cissoko-Stephens said.
Here is what the WNBA rulebook says about timeouts in overtime:
"In overtime periods, each team shall be allowed two (2) team timeouts. There is no restriction as to when a team must call its timeouts during any overtime period."
"Each team is entitled to one Reset in the final two minutes of the fourth period and one Reset in the last two minutes of any overtime period."
The Liberty used their first timeout in overtime with 4:05 remaining to challenge a foul called on Fauthoux, which was upheld. They used their second timeout with 21 seconds remaining to draw up a play for a potential go-ahead basket that was not successful. As Cissoko-Stephens confirmed, they did indeed have their reset timeout, and should have been able to use it with 4.3 seconds left.
But as Stewart noted, it was not the officials' fault that the Liberty lost.
Dream star Allisha Gray did not play due to a hand injury and Rhyne Howard shot 5 of 20. The Liberty were also up by three with less than two minutes to play in overtime and on their second-to-last possession, Sabrina Ionescu threw a ball into the fifth row. The Liberty had their chances, and even if they had used their reset timeout successfully, would have only been able to force a second overtime.
At the same time, if Stewart's version of events is accurate -- and despite the pool report, it's hard to believe she's lying given her reputation -- that is a massive blunder by the officials that absolutely cannot happen at that stage of a playoff game.
