The WNBA fined both Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White and Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon on Monday for their comments in support of Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve.
The WNBA doesn’t disclose fine amounts, and neither coach revealed how much they were fined by the league. But both coaches spoke out in support of Reeve, who was suspended for one game last week after she was ejected in Game 3 of their semifinals series with the Phoenix Mercury and then erupted on the officiating.
Advertisement
“I think she made a lot of valid points,” White . “I think at some point there has to be some accountability.”
Hammon followed suit.
“From what I heard, she did not tell a lie,” Hammon said on Sunday. “She said the truth.”
The Aces and Fever are tied up 2-2 in their series. They’ll square off next in Game 5 on Tuesday night with a trip to the WNBA Finals on the line.
What happened to Cheryl Reeve?
of the Lynx’s 84-76 loss to the Mercury on Friday night. She came running out onto the court to berate the officials after star Nepheesa Collier was hurt on a steal, and was so outraged that she had to be held back by multiple coaches and players as she tried to charge toward the referees.
Advertisement
Reeve was very quickly ejected, and she even started berating Mercury fans in the Arizona arena on her way out.
She , and called the officials “f***ing awful.”
“This is the look that our league wants, for some reason,” she said. “We were trying to play through it, we tried not to make excuses. One of the best players in the league shot zero free throws. Zero, and she had five fouls. Zero free throws. Got her shoulder pulled out and finished the game with her leg being taken out, and probably has a fracture. And so this is what our league wants. OK. But I want to call for a change in leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating. It’s bad for the game.
“The officiating crew that we had for tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff worthy is f***ing malpractice. I can take an L with the best of them. I don’t think we should have to play through more than what they did. We’ve got players — [Maria Kliundikova’s] on the glass and gets f***ing cracked, and there’s no call. And all of them decided ‘It wasn’t my call, I don’t know, I didn’t see it that way.’ They’re f***ing awful.”
Reeve and two of her assistant coaches were later fined, and for their . That sent the Mercury into the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2021.
Reeve is the winningest coach in WNBA history. She’s been with the Lynx since 2010 and won four championships with the franchise. Reeve also led Team USA to an eighth consecutive gold medal in the Paris Olympics last summer.
Reeve is far from the only coach or person in the WNBA to call out the officiating this season. in Game 4. The league’s officiating isn’t set up like the WNBA’s either. Officials are part-time, many are then hired into the NBA, and there is no “last two-minute” report or a centralized review center. With the way the WNBA has grown in recent years, . The players, White said, “deserve growth in that area” too.
“Every part of our league has gotten better, and [officiating] has lagged behind, for whatever reason,” White said on Friday, via ESPN. “Oftentimes it’s infrastructure… We all know that when you are trying to invest in an area of business or of sport or whatever, it comes down to resources.”
#Aces #coach #Becky #Hammon #Fever #coach #Stephanie #White #fined #comments #supporting #Cheryl #Reeve #officiating #issues