Liberty Say They Were Told No Reset Timeout, Officials Say No One Asked in 101-98 Loss

The New York Liberty left Atlanta with their season on the brink and a timeout they never used. Breanna Stewart and head coach Chris DeMarco say officials told them in overtime that no reset timeout remained, USA Today reports, while the game’s pool report says the crew confirmed the opposite and never spoke to the team at all. New York lost 101-98, trails the semifinal 2-0, and has filed an official inquiry with the WNBA.

What exactly happened in the last seconds of overtime?

The sequence is short, and both sides agree on the setting. Angel Reese was at the free-throw line with about four seconds left in overtime and Atlanta protecting a one-possession lead. Stewart, who finished with 35 points, 11 rebounds and six assists, asked official Kevin Fahy whether New York had its reset timeout, the New York Post reports. A reset would have advanced the ball to the frontcourt for a far better final shot than the long three Stewart eventually missed.

Stewart’s account is specific. She says Fahy was unsure, checked with crew chief Fatou Cissoko-Stephens, and relayed her answer: no reset remained. Sabrina Ionescu says she asked too, and members of DeMarco’s staff say they asked as well, the Post reports. DeMarco’s version matches his player’s: the team was told it did not have the timeout. Games at this level turn on small margins, which is why the format details in our explainer on how long WNBA games last and how overtime works matter in the final seconds.

What did the pool report say instead?

Almost the reverse. In the pool report, Cissoko-Stephens said Stewart was standing behind Fahy when he confirmed with his partner between Reese’s free throws that New York did indeed have a reset timeout remaining, USA Today reports. She also said there was no direct communication with New York’s staff about the timeout.

Those two accounts cannot both be complete. Either a check happened and its result never reached the Liberty bench in usable form, or the bench misunderstood what it heard in a loud arena. What is not disputed is the outcome: the reset existed, it went unused, and Atlanta’s own coach, Karl Smesko, said he expected the ball to be advanced because he believed New York had a timeout left, USA Today reports.

Why does the protocol make this dispute possible?

Because timeouts are not the officials’ count to keep. The pool report spelled out the protocol: the scorer’s table and statistical staff track available timeouts, teams are responsible for managing their own usage, and officials may confirm the status with the table when necessary but do not officially track timeouts, USA Today reports.

That design creates the gap this game fell into. A player can ask a question the nearest official is not required to know the answer to, and a correct confirmation between two officials can still fail to reach the team that needed it. The row sits in the same officiating spotlight as the NBA’s new push-off emphasis that caught Scottie Barnes on opening night and the technical given to Nikola Jokic after he was shoved first in preseason: the call, or the communication around it, becomes the story.

How much did the unused timeout actually cost New York?

A better look, not a certain basket. Stewart still got a three away at the buzzer, and Leonie Fiebich pushed back on the idea that the officials decided the game, the Post reports. Ionescu, who called the mistake costly, also put her own performance first, saying the loss was on her after a poor free-throw night.

The honest reading is narrower than the outrage. New York lost a game with 17 lead changes through its own late errors too, including a jump ball and a pass thrown into the second row in the final minute, the Post reports. But a semifinal possession is exactly the moment a reset timeout exists for, and the Liberty’s frustration echoes Sophie Cunningham’s argument this month that process, not one result, is the problem when she questioned how a fan incident was handled.

What does the new footage show? (Update, October 8)

It shows the conversation the pool report said never happened. Update, October 8: ESPN’s NBA Today programme aired a new video angle with audio on Thursday in which Stewart can be heard asking Fahy about the reset timeout while Reese prepared to shoot her free throws with 4.3 seconds left in overtime, the New York Post reports. Stewart also turned toward her bench making the reset gesture, which fits her account that the team was deciding whether to use it.

Fahy’s visible response is the problem for the officials’ version. The closest official to Stewart, he appeared to wave off her suggestion and make a zero shape with his hand, the gesture a player would read as no timeouts left, the Post reports. That is direct communication by any normal definition, and it flatly contradicts the pool report’s statement that the crew had none with New York. The league did not return the Post’s inquiry about the new angle at that stage, while a league source confirmed the Liberty’s own query was under review. The league answered it on Friday, in the update below.

What did the league conclude on Friday? (Update, October 9)

The league closed the inquiry and sided with the part of Stewart’s account the footage already supported. About 30 minutes before Game 3 tipped off in Brooklyn on Friday, the WNBA said it had reviewed multiple video angles and available audio and spoken with those involved as part of its standard inquiry process, the Associated Press reports. Its statement confirmed it is clear on video and audio that Stewart asked Fahy about the reset timeout.

The league’s explanation was a pile-up, not a single error. It said overlapping conversations and non-verbal exchanges between the referees, the players and Stewart with her own bench produced a misunderstanding among everyone involved, that its referees can handle such interactions better, and that they have been given that feedback, Yahoo Sports reports. It also said no further follow-up is expected, which closes the inquiry without discipline, a replay or a change to the result.

One question the statement deliberately did not answer is the one at the centre of the dispute. The Associated Press noted the league did not address whether the officials told Stewart that New York had the timeout or not. So the pool report’s claim of no direct communication has been overtaken by the league’s own confirmation that she asked, while what Fahy relayed back to her remains officially unaddressed.

Friday’s shootaround filled in the human side before the statement landed. Stewart said being put in a position where her integrity was questioned was really disappointing, and DeMarco backed her publicly, calling her a model citizen for the game whose honesty should not be doubted, the New York Post reports. Ionescu said one official told her yes and another shook a head no, that she stayed conflicted, and that she did not force the timeout herself partly because calling one New York did not have would have drawn a technical foul. DeMarco confirmed a staff member tracks the timeouts and admitted his bench should have pushed harder.

What happens now that the inquiry and the series are over?

Nothing further, on the inquiry at least, and the series ended the same night. Atlanta won Game 3 in Brooklyn 85-83 on Friday to complete a 3-0 sweep and reach its first WNBA Finals since 2013, the New York Post reports, so the reset timeout New York never used in Game 2 is now a closed file attached to a finished season rather than a live controversy.

That ending is the real consequence map. The league has given its officials feedback instead of a public correction of the pool report, the Liberty have an official confirmation that their star asked the question she said she asked, and neither changes the possession, the 101-98 score or the sweep. The lasting lesson is the protocol gap this series exposed, the same one behind the Cunningham and Wilson fan-incident row over how a process failure gets handled: when the count belongs to the table and the benches, a correct answer held by the crew is worth nothing if it never reaches the team that asked for it, in a form it can act on, with four seconds left. A process question of a different kind opened in college basketball the same week, where Columbia suspended Megan Griffith for three games after an outside review and her players answered with a public statement of support. Atlanta’s season did not end with that sweep: the Dream reached the Finals and lost Game 1 at Golden State on Saturday, in a game that produced its own officiating argument when Jordin Canada’s box-out knocked Gabby Williams down with 2:15 left and no foul was called.