Of all the fans, coaches, and players who complained about the excess physicality in the WNBA, Breanna Stewart was different. “This is the best league in the world, and nobody’s going to give you anything easy,” the Liberty star said in 2024. “Understanding that and learning how to play through it. This level, they’re the fastest, the strongest, and the quickest.” Now that the league is changing its position on it, Stewart has called out the new style of officiating. 

The Liberty faced off against the Washington Mystics, and the young side pushed them all the way to overtime. In a game that featured 11 lead changes and was tied eight times, the experienced Liberty eventually took over. A 13-8 overtime win meant the Liberty won the fixture 98-93. After the game, Breanna Stewart pointed out the tight whistle from the officials, with a combined 58 fouls called throughout the game. On top of that, two Liberty players fouled out, something Stewart clearly wasn’t too happy about.

“It disrupts everyone’s flow, not just my team, both sides of the game. This game was 2 hours and 41 minutes long. That’s insane,” Stewart told the media. “We said it last game too. I know it’s going to take time figuring out the standard of what’s going to be called, but there are calls being made that are unnecessary on both sides, and then there’s no flow. So, I still don’t know.”

Last year, we had 34.8 fouls called per game, and this year, it has been 44.06 in the small sample size so far. Clearly, the referees and the league are clamping down on the physicality. But the players are still used to the old ways. Those instincts won’t go away soon, which is causing these fouls. 

The frustration around the officiating was not limited to Breanna Stewart alone. Even Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve admitted that players and officials are still trying to find the right balance when it comes to physicality this season.

“We talked about some unnecessary physicality. We didn’t say we want to call marginal fouls. Never brought that up. It takes a little bit of time for sure to calibrate both them and us, but I know that when we’re trying to get open on the side out-of-bounds and we’re being held by the shoulders, that’s the kind of stuff that we’re talking about that you have to call those plays,” Reeve said. “Obviously, we’ll continue to work with the league on getting this right because we’re not the only team sitting here wondering why everything’s a foul.”

And the conversation around officiating did not stop there either. Even Caitlin Clark openly criticized the referees after their season opener against the Dallas Wings. “I think especially if they’re going to call it the way they’re going to call it this year, I think I honestly could have probably got a couple more calls on a few of them, but that’s okay,” Clark said.

So Stewart is not the only one to complain about the uptick in fouls. These foul counts may come down once the players figure out the new standards. Because of this, the scoring has gone up. Teams have scored 87.4 points per game as per ESPN, up from 81.5 points. So the game is moving toward a more NBA-style direction, allowing the players to score more. 

Speaking about the game, Breanna Stewart once again delivered for the Liberty, finishing with 23 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. But she was far from alone, as three other Liberty players also scored in double figures, with Marine Johannès leading the way by tying her career high with six made three-pointers and scoring a game-high 25 points.

That said, both the league and the players still need to find the right balance in order to preserve the essence of the WNBA. This was the first time the reigning champions had committed more than 30 fouls in a game since 2007. On top of that, the Liberty and Connecticut Sun season opener featured a combined 48 personal fouls, the most ever called in a New York franchise opener in the last 30 years.

Yet beyond the foul trouble and constant whistles, the Mystics exposed another weakness that could end up haunting the Liberty all season.

Breanna Stewart & Co. Must Fix This Major Weakness to Become Championship Contenders

The Liberty struggled when Jonquel Jones was out last year. And the biggest thing they missed is her rebounding. The team as a whole struggled on the boards, getting 33.7 rebounds per game, ranking 7th in the league. When it comes to offensive rebounds, they ranked dead last in the league with 6.8 per game. 

After a first-round exit last year, they have changed coaches and added Satou Sabally, Han Xu, and Racquel Carrera to make the team even better on paper. However, the Mystics’ game exposed the rebounding flaw yet again.

The Mystics outrebounded 42-34 as second-year Kiki Iriafen imposed herself with 12 rebounds while Sahkira Austin added 12. On the other hand, no one apart from Stewart and Jones had more than 5 rebounds. Pauline Astier and Xu combined for 10. After the game, Stewart recognized it as a major issue as well. 

“Washington Mystics have always been a great rebounding team. Sometimes we were out of position, and it was a struggle to go after the long rebounds, but this is a point of emphasis and something we need to be better at,” Stewart said. “Given the cards we were dealt, I thought we did pretty good. We were playing overtime without both of our centers and just continued to fight through it.”

Unless the Liberty find a solution to this, the top teams will take advantage of this fatal flaw. The only game they won in that first-round series against Phoenix came when they outrebounded the Mercury. In the final game of the series, the Mercury had a whopping 49 rebounds. So, if they manage to take that next step, this Liberty side could become a contender.