The Atlanta Dream’s thrilling 101-98 overtime victory over the New York Liberty in Game 2 of their semifinal series was marred by controversy after Breanna Stewart accused officials of incorrectly telling the Liberty there was no timeout on the final play of overtime. Crew chief Fatou Cissoko-Stephens denied Stewart’s version of events in the pool report, saying there was “no direct contact” between officials and Liberty.
Regardless of what exactly happened, the Liberty now trail the Dream 2-0 in their best-of-five matchup, and no team in WNBA history has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit. Here’s a closer look at the controversial ending to Game 2 as Liberty tries to find a way to get back into this series in Game 3 at home on Friday.
Angel Reese hit two clutch free throws with 4.3 seconds left in the extra frame to extend the Dream lead to three points. Liberty had the ball and recovered a timeout, sending the game into overtime after a brilliant layup that set Marine Fauthoux free for a 3-pointer.
So they still had hope—or so it seemed.
Liberty didn’t call a timeout and instead tried to throw a long pass to Deniz Yohannes near the court. The tip of the ball spun and somehow ended up in Stewart’s hands, but his booming sound was nowhere near enough. In the early going, it appeared that first-year head coach Chris DeMarco had made a huge mistake.
But during the postgame press conference, Stewart explained why the Liberty didn’t call a timeout.
“It’s not to blame the refs, but when I asked both refs if there was a reset time and they told us no and then we left the game with a reset time, it’s pretty disappointing,” Stewart said. “Yes, yes, I looked at the end well, but I would like to clarify this situation as well.”
I asked [official] Kevin [Fahy]I said, ‘do we have a reset timeout?’ And he said, ‘I’ll look at the table,'” Stewart added. “He looked. [official] Fatou [Cissoko-Stephens]and he said no [Fahy] he told me no. Who knows what would have happened at the end of the game, but we hope we could have scored better.”
“Yeah, same thing,” DeMarco said when asked his take on the situation. “They just said we don’t have it. Yes, too many workers. It is what it is. We should ask for more, but it is what it is.”
In a pool report an hour after the final buzzer, Cissoko-Stephens confirmed that Liberty’s reset period was in place and denied Stewart’s version of events. “The referee was standing behind Fahy when Stuart Reese confirmed with his partner that there was indeed reset time left in New York between penalty shots,” Cissoko-Stephens said.
Here’s what the WNBA rulebook says about overtime timeouts:
- “Each team is allowed two (2) team timeouts during overtime. There is no limit on when a team may call its timeouts during any overtime period.”
- “Each team is entitled to one Reset in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter and one Reset in the last two minutes of any overtime period.”
Liberty used its first timeout in overtime with 4:05 remaining to protest a foul called on Fauthoux, and it was upheld. They used a second timeout with 21 seconds remaining to set up a play for a potential go-ahead field goal that was unsuccessful. As Cissoko-Stephens confirmed, they did indeed have a reset and should have been able to use it with 4.3 seconds remaining.
But as Stewart pointed out, it wasn’t the officials’ fault that Liberty lost.
Dream star Allisha Gray didn’t play because of a hand injury, and Raine Howard shot 5-of-20. Liberty also went ahead by three with less than two minutes to play in overtime, and on their second possession, Sabrina Ionescu threw the ball to the fifth. The Liberty had their chances, and even if they successfully used a reset timeout, they could only go into 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 he’s lying given his reputation — it’s a huge blunder by the officials and completely unheard of at this stage of the playoffs.