A late-game rules dispute is overshadowing the New York Liberty's overtime defeat at Atlanta on Wednesday, with star forward Breanna Stewart and the officiating crew offering conflicting accounts of whether the team had a timeout available in the closing moments.
According to Stewart, the officials informed her that the Liberty did not have a reset timeout to use at the end of the extra period. Crew chief Fatou Cissoko-Stephens contradicted that version of events in a pool report, stating that the remaining timeout was communicated.
The disagreement centers on a rule that resets a team's timeout allotment in overtime, a provision that can prove decisive in a game extended beyond regulation. Whether the Liberty were aware of their available timeout — and whether that information was properly relayed by the officiating crew — now stands as the central question in the aftermath of the loss.
The account from Stewart was first reported by Alexa Philippou of www.espn.com - TOP. Cissoko-Stephens' response came through the WNBA's pool report process, in which a member of the officiating crew answers questions from a designated reporter after the game.
For the Liberty and their fans, the dispute adds a layer of frustration to a road result decided in overtime. The team has not yet indicated whether it will pursue the matter further with the league office.
