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.
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.”
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.”
Forget the game ball. Somebody needs to preserve that sneaker.
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