Sandy Brondello Addresses Controversial WNBA Finals Refereeing With Six-Word Message
The New York Liberty defeated the Minnesota Lynx to win Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on Sunday, cementing the first-ever championship in the Liberty franchise's history.
Although the win did not come without controversy. A couple of suspect calls that favored Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello and her team ended up making a major impact on the game's outcome.
Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve made a few bold claims about the calls that were made — specifically a foul call on Liberty star Breanna Stewart in the final seconds of regulation that ultimately sent the game to overtime — in her postgame press conference, including saying, "the s*** was stolen from us."
Brondello doesn't share that same sentiment.
When she was asked about the referee's performance in the game and about Reeve saying the game was stolen from her team, Brondello said, "I thought they were pretty fair," per Robin Lundberg.
"After the last game... I mean... [there's] give and take. Like game number one, we should have won that game... But look, I have so much respect for Cheryl and I have so much respect for that Minnesota Lynx team, because man, that was ugly. But we found a way to win.
"So I'm really proud of our team, how resilient we were, how we stuck together, how we continued to trust each other," Brondello continued.
Sandy Brondello responds to Cheryl Reeve pic.twitter.com/mom0SEpzGh
— Robin Lundberg (@robinlundberg) October 21, 2024
There's certainly no reason to blame Brondello or her Liberty players for the officiating in the game, given that they're not in charge of the calls made or not made. But that won't make the Lynx feel any better.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.