The New York Liberty trail the Atlanta Dream 2-0. Game 2, a three-pointer from Marine Fauthoux, overtime. Atlanta lead by one, Sabrina Ionescu loses the ball, Angel Reese goes to the free-throw line and doesn’t flinch. And during those free throws, Breanna Stewart asks the officials whether the Liberty still have a “reset timeout”.
The “reset timeout” dates from 2024: in the last two minutes, you stop the game and, under certain conditions, you move the ball up the floor, no huddle round the coach. Kevin Fahy, the referee, doesn’t know. He checks with the scorer’s table. He says no. New York inbound from their baseline. The timeout hadn’t been used. Sabrina Ionescu says she asked too, like the staff, and heard no every time.
The head referee, Fatou Cissoko-Stephens, says Breanna Stewart was standing behind Kevin Fahy when he confirmed with his partner that the Liberty had it. According to the officials, there was no dialogue with the players.
No dialogue. A time-out is thirty seconds of me. So I’ll redo the moment for you, like a Saturday at half past eight, the school fête’s two spotlights on.
“Mesdames et messieurs, dames en heren. Between two free throws. A message from the scorer’s table. The Liberty still have… [jingle] … one… reset… timeout! Make some noise.”
Everyone knows it. The hall, the club bar, the caretaker. Even the sound system, which has an opinion.
Where I play, in the first provincial division, you’d have heard it all the way to the car park.
Breanna Stewart said she had a good shot in the final moments, but that she would have liked “more clarity on the situation”. Clarity, I’ve got two spotlights of it.
The mic was free. Just saying.
It’s true, we checked: Basket USA.
