Phoenix Mercury players highly critical of officiating in loss to New York Liberty
The Mercury shot a season-low four free throws in Monday's 84-70 loss against the Liberty. It was also the fewest attempts the Mercury have shot in a game since July 9, 2002.
PHOENIX — Phoenix Mercury guard Natasha Cloud and center Brittney Griner were both highly critical about the officiating after Monday’s 84-70 loss to the New York Liberty.
The Mercury only shot four free throws in the loss, which is tied for the second-lowest amount in the league this season. Meanwhile, the Liberty shot 16 free throw attempts on Monday.
In addition, the Mercury’s four free throw attempts on Monday are the fewest the Mercury have shot in a game since July 9, 2002 (two free throw attempts). Only three times in franchise history have the Mercury shot four or fewer free throw attempts in a game.
Griner began the postgame press conference by vaguely saying, “I mean, sometimes the game just doesn’t do what you really want it to do, honestly,” before Cloud, without hesitation, pointed to the free throw attempts on Griner’s copy of the box score.
“Jesus,” Griner said surprised.
“When you only have four free throw attempts, it’s kind of hard to win games,” Cloud said.
“I mean four free throws, wow, that’s crazy,” Griner said. “And they had sixteen.”
The Mercury had 46 points in the paint (on 23-of-37 shooting) while the Liberty had 30 paint points on Monday (on 15-of-34 shooting).
“I mean we are (attacking the basket),” Cloud said.
“I mean when we attack (the basket) and they don’t give it to us, then what?” Griner said.
Of the four free throw attempts the Mercury shot, one of them was from Griner and three of them came from Taurasi.
Griner averages 4.1 free throw attempts per game, Taurasi averages 3.7 attempts per game and Kahleah Copper averages 5.7 attempts per game. Copper attempted zero free throws on Monday night.
“ … There’s a lot of things we can control as a team, we’re very aware of that,” Cloud said. “But we can’t keep going five against eight every single night. We can’t keep doing it.”
The Mercury average 18.4 free throw attempts per game, which slots them sixth in the league. The Liberty average 16.7 free throw attempts per game, ninth in the WNBA.
However, Phoenix leads the league in technical fouls this season by a landslide.
Of the 132 technical fouls in the league this season, 27, or more than 20% of them, have been charged to the Mercury.
This year’s Mercury have tied the 2022 Mercury and 2001 Liberty for the most technical fouls in a single season.
“And everyone wants to know why the Phoenix Mercury has the most techs in the league,” Cloud said. “It’s because the games are not being called equally on both ends of the floor.”
Taurasi and Cloud both lead the league with six technical fouls. Both players are one technical foul away from an automatic one-game suspension.
Copper has five technical fouls on the season while Griner has four. Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts only has one technical foul this season. He was not critical of the refs during his postgame press conference on Monday.
Phoenix, unlike some of the other teams in the league, does not do media availabilities with players and coaches sitting together at the same time.
“So we’re having to advocate every single night,” Cloud said. “We’re having to fight every single night. Because we’re bringing the best product that we can on the floor and we’re not being rewarded for it. To only shoot four free throws during a game is insane.”
Griner finished with a game-high 22 points on 11-of-16 (68.8%) shooting in Monday’s loss. Of Griner’s 16 shot attempts, 14 of them were inside the paint, yet she still only shot one free throw.
“I mean, yeah, they play a real clean game I guess,” Griner said sarcastically. “That’s wild.”
Liberty coach Sandy Brondello, who also coached Griner from 2014-21, thought the Liberty did a good job of defending Griner.
“I thought for the most part, she still had 22 points,” Brondello said. “That is when we left her in single coverage. She is a great player. I thought that when we were blitzing, we brought our bigger post players. I thought (Breanna Stewart) did a really good job. We rotated well out of it. It is relying on your scrambled defense. It was effective.”
“I mean, we got to be professionals,” Griner said. “People aren’t perfect, and you’re going to boil over. But we also know we can’t give them more things to call against us and put them on the line. So as much as it stings and it hurts, we have to lock in and I think we’ve been doing a really good job of that because we have some people on the edge and the brink of (a suspension).”
The Mercury have gone the last four games without receiving a technical foul after being called for six in the first two games after the Olympic break.
“So we’ve been honing it in, trying to plead our case when we can, but just keeping it at a professional level,” Griner continued.
 | A guest post by
|