Way to put your thumb on the scale of the playoffs, WNBA.
Regardless if you think Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve’s f-bomb-laced tirade about officiating was out of bounds or that she crossed a line by “aggressively pursuing” officials on the court, suspending her for what is an elimination game is a far greater offense. Why not just spot the Phoenix Mercury 25 points for Game 4 on Sunday afternoon while you’re at it? Scrap the last two games of the series and say the series has been reduced to best-of-three?
Penalize Reeve, sure. But don’t punish her team in the process. Because now it just looks like the league is retaliating for Reeve having the guts to speak the truth about the W’s culpability in Napheesa Collier’s injury and its long-standing indifference to the health and safety of its players.
That Reeve continues to point out that a bad call in last year’s Finals might have cost the Lynx a fifth title probably doesn’t help matters.
Players and coaches have been warning the WNBA for years the physicality of the game has gotten out of hand and the officiating is trash. Someone, they said, is going to get hurt if the WNBA doesn’t get it under control.
Sure enough, someone did! And not just anyone, one of the game’s biggest stars in one of the season’s biggest games.
Collier, a runner-up to A’ja Wilson for MVP each of the last two seasons, will miss Game 4 on Sunday afternoon after being hurt in the closing minutes of Game 3. Collier and Alyssa Thomas collided after Thomas stripped her of the ball. Collier and Thomas’ knees knocked, and Collier appeared to twist her ankle as she fell to the ground.
Collier briefly took a seat on the bench before leaving the floor, limping and in tears. Reeve, livid at Collier being treated like a crash-test dummy all series, had to be held back by her assistants and Lynx guard Natisha Hiedeman and then lit into the refs after the game.
“If this is what our league wants, OK. But I want to call for a change of leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating,” Reeve said, not even trying to contain her fury.
“It’s bad for the game. The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff-worthy is f—ing malpractice.”
Now, Thomas’ steal was clean. But there is a case to be made that she should have been whistled for running through Collier afterward, initiating contact as she tried to make a play. Or, to quote the W’s own rule book, “A player shall not hold, push, charge into, impede the progress of an opponent by extending an arm, leg or knee or by bending the body into a position that is not normal.”
The larger case to be made is that if refs hadn’t let this game — hell, the whole series — go off the rails in terms of physicality, Thomas might have been playing with more restraint and might not have barreled into Collier. But when the refs, and by extension the league, give their blessing to a roller derby, players are going to play accordingly.
And an injury like Collier’s is inevitable.
“She got her shoulder pulled out and finished the game with her leg being taken out. And probably has a fracture,” Reeve said Friday night.
Officiating, in any sport and at any level, is a tough job. You are asked to make split-second decisions on a fast-moving game, and you get harangued by players, coaches and fans alike.
But the level of complaints for officiating in the WNBA compared with the NBA, and even the college game, are not remotely close. In part because the NBA has recognized that poor officiating is bad for the league’s business and taken steps to clean it up.
NBA referees are full-time employees, sparing them from having to pick up games in other leagues and spread themselves thin. Reviews are done at the league’s Replay Center, where additional personnel and the latest technology help ensure the right decisions are made and it doesn’t take an hour to do it.
There’s also a two-minute report, a review and assessment of all officiated events in the last two minutes of a game where the score is at or within three points. The report is then made public.
The W doesn’t have any of that. What’s that old saying about getting what you pay for? Except, in this case, it’s the players who pay the price, in bumps and bruises and broken bones.
Suspending Reeve for the start of next season and giving her a hefty fine would have served the same purpose, sent the same message. But Reeve’s criticisms hit a little too close to home, and that’s what the WNBA can’t tolerate.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
