INDIANAPOLIS — Officiating took center stage in the Indiana Fever’s 111-109 loss to the Phoenix Mercury on Wednesday. Among the most controversial calls was an offensive foul against Kelsey Mitchell that negated the game-tying basket with 22 seconds remaining.
Mitchell took the inbound and drove toward the 3-point line with Kahleah Copper on her right side. She came to a stop just inside the arc and as she did, Copper threw her head back and stumbled backward, colliding with Raven Johnson at the free-throw line.
There was some hand-checking between Mitchell and Copper once the Fever guard took possession, but Mitchell did not outwardly extend her arm. The whistle was blown as Mitchell released her shot, negating the long 2-pointer
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“I thought the last offensive foul was soft compared to the couple that happened earlier in the game,” White said. “Was there extension? Yeah. It was down. It wasn’t out. I thought that was a really soft margin of contact call right there. There were multiple plays in the game where I felt we should’ve gotten that call and didn’t.”
The foul was Mitchell’s sixth — the maximum a player is allowed — but she was inexplicably allowed to remain on the floor for the ensuing possession, during which Lexie Hull fouled a Mercury player to stop the clock.
The Fever attempted 19 free throws to 33 for the Mercury, and were called for 10 more fouls (29-19).
“It was tough. I fouled out, so you can imagine how I feel,” Mitchell said. “I think we were a little handsy. Obviously, it’s a 50-50 in everything you do in life, (and) the refs called it, so we have to be smarter. We have to be a little more aligned in what we need.”
The Mercury converted 1 of 2 free throws, then surrendered a layup to Sophie Cunningham, leaving the score at 110-109 with six seconds remaining.
Copper hit her first free throw, but missed the second. Hull corralled the side-angled rebound and passed it to Johnson, but the ball slipped away from the rookie guard and appeared to be unintentionally kicked down the floor by a Mercury player before the visitors took possession as time expired.
The Fever were supposed to use their reset timeout once Hull came down with the rebound, according to White, but “it just didn’t get called.”
Reset timeouts cannot be leveraged to challenge a call.
“We get the rebound, we secure the rebound, we call timeout,” she said. “We got the rebound and were getting ready to call it, and it didn’t happen.”
The Fever (10-8) host the Los Angeles Sparks at 8 p.m. Saturday.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How an offensive foul, fumbled pass cost Indiana Fever chance for comeback win vs Mercury
Reporting by Brian Haenchen, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Brian Haenchen, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
