ATLANTA (AP) — The New York Liberty opted not to advance the ball for a better shot at a tying 3-pointer, then said after their loss Wednesday night that officials told them they didn't have a reset timeout left.
The Liberty inbounded the ball under the basket, forcing them to go the length of the court, after Angel Reese made two free throws to give the Atlanta Dream a three-point lead with 4.3 seconds remaining in overtime. The broadcast of the game
showed that the Liberty had their reset, which is a WNBA rule allowing a team to advance the ball to halfcourt without going back to its bench to huddle.
Breanna Stewart missed a 32-foot attempt and the Dream took a 2-0 lead in the WNBA semifinals with their 101-98 victory.
WNBA rules say that “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 had used both regular timeouts in overtime — they lost a coach's challenge to cost them one — but hadn't used their reset. Yet Stewart said they were told it wasn't available.
“This is not blaming the refs, but when I ask both refs if we have a reset timeout again, and they tell us no, and we leave the game with a reset timeout, it's pretty frustrating,” Stewart said. “Yeah, OK, I kind of got a good look at the end, but we'd just like to have some clarity on that situation as well.”
Stewart clarified that the conversation with the officials happened while Reese was at the line.
“I asked Kevin (referee Kevin Fahy), I said, ‘Do we have a reset timeout?’ And he said, ‘I’m going to check with the table.’ So then he goes to Fatou (referee Fatou Cissoko-Stephens) and she said no. So he told me no," Stewart said. “Of course, who knows what would have happened to end the game, but we would have had hopefully a better shot on goal.”
New York coach Chris DeMarco also confirmed he was told the team did not have a timeout. On the other side, Atlanta coach Karl Smesko was equally surprised.
“I thought they had a timeout left,” Smesko said. “I was expecting it to be advanced, but it wasn't. So we had to play, and fortunately we were able to get the stop.”
The Liberty made an official inquiry with the WNBA. A pool report was expected to provide comments from the crew chief.
___
See AP’s full WNBA coverage here
