You don’t see many games swing because of a flying sneaker, but that’s exactly what happened in the WNBA on Sunday.
New York Liberty guard Betnijah Laney-Hamilton was tossed from a tight 93-91 loss to the Toronto Tempo after pegging opponent Marina Mabrey in the back with a stray shoe.
The flying sneaker couldn’t have come at a worse time, derailing New York’s furious comeback after the Liberty entered the fourth quarter down 16.
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The chaos started late in the fourth when Jonquel Jones lost her sneaker. Laney-Hamilton tried to throw it back to her teammate, but it instead smacked an unsuspecting Mabrey in the back.
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Laney-Hamilton had already been mixing it up with Mabrey earlier in the game, including one exchange that earned her a Flagrant 1 foul.
When the shoe struck Mabrey, officials hit Laney-Hamilton with a technical foul and ejected her.
Laney-Hamilton defended herself after the final buzzer, insisting it was nothing more than a terrible throw.
“I would never intentionally try to hit someone with a shoe, especially while they’re not looking,” Laney-Hamilton said.
“Teammate was without a shoe, so I did my best to try and get it to her. Unfortunately, it did hit someone. I know just by the way that things were going throughout the game that it can look a certain way, but that’s just not something that I would personally do, especially in a moment like that where the game is on the line.”
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Mabrey took the high road after the win, laughing off the fact that she got drilled by a flying sneaker.
“I had to take a couple breaths,” Mabrey said. “But I think she was really just trying to get the shoe back to JJ. But I’ll take the free throw. I’m working on not being rage-baited.”
While the players kept it cool, Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco absolutely lost his mind over the game-altering whistle.
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“I’ve never seen anything like that,” DeMarco said. “We had all the momentum in the world. A shoe hit somebody. Ejected, free throws. I’ve also never seen a ref make such an atrocious call when he’s on the other side of the floor. She was trying to get the shoe back to Jones; it hit somebody. I think we’re just making stuff up. I have no idea. You’re asking the wrong person, okay? It was just an atrocious, atrocious end of that game from the officials.”
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Forget the game ball. Somebody needs to preserve that sneaker.
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