NEW YORK (AP) — Breanna Stewart and the New York Liberty are moving on from Game 2 and the confusion of whether they had a timeout in the waning seconds of overtime.
The Liberty star knows that it won't do any good to dwell on the discrepancy between her discussion with the officials and what they said in a pool report to reporters. It doesn't matter with Friday night's game against the Atlanta Dream being a must-win for the Liberty, who trail 2-0
in the best-of-five series.
“I really don't want to talk much about this, my main focus is Game 3, but what I will say is you want to have respect between players and refs in order to have respect you need to build trust,” Stewart said. “Building trust comes with being honest. 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’ve heard, and, that’s that and I’m going to continue to move on."
The confusion came in the final seconds of OT when New York trailed by one point with Angel Reese at the foul line. Stewart asked the officials whether the team had their reset timeout remaining. Stewart said the official answered no. In the postgame report, the head official contradicted that, saying New York did have their timeout.
Following Reese’s two made free throws but without the timeout that would have allowed New York to inbound the ball at midcourt, Stewart missed a desperation shot at the buzzer and the Liberty lost 101-98. The Liberty have made an official inquiry with the WNBA although its not clear what would even come from that.
Stewart said she received a text from Bethany Donaphin, who is the head of WNBA League Operations.
New York point guard Sabrina Ionescu also said she asked an official about the reset timeout and was given a conflicting answer as well.
“One ref told me yes, the other one, shook their head no, so I think I was confused as well,” Ionescu said. "I take it on me like I should have kind of been more demonstrative."
Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said that there is someone on the team's bench who is responsible for keeping track of timeouts.
“I think we all saw what happened and it is what it is. There’s nothing we can do now,” he said. “So again, we’re just focused on tonight.”
He admitted that he should have done more.
“We know the rules. We should have pushed harder, and it was just unfortunate situation,” he said. “I think we all saw it happen and we move on and our focus is on tonight. It has to be. So we don’t want it to be a distraction. We’re back in our building and they did what they’re supposed to do, and we got to do what we’re supposed.”
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