Fever guard Sophie Cunningham didn’t hold back while discussing Dream forward Angel Reese’s physicality in the deciding Game 3 of the Atlanta-Liberty semifinals series of the WNBA playoffs.
During Thursday’s installment of the “No Hesitation” podcast, Cunningham explained that Reese should’ve been called for a technical foul after chasing down Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu and chirping in her face after Ionescu was called for a hard offensive foul on Dream guard Isobel Borlase.
Cunningham went on to describe the referees’ officiating as “weird and inconsistent.”
“Now, here we go … Angel, I appreciate her having her teammate’s back. I think that just shows that she care and that she has love for her teammates,” Cunningham said.
“Here’s my thing, if you’re going to chase someone down the court and get in someone’s ear, that should be a tech, any time. It’s going to be a tech in the regular season. Any other playoff games, that’s a technical foul. You can’t do that.
“Now if she were to stay on her side and kind of just yell and say something, I’m all for that. But the fact that she didn’t get a tech on that I think that is absolutely insane.”
Cunningham brought up a separate play in which Reese drove to the basket and attempted a shot that was blocked out of bounds by Liberty center Jonquel Jones.
Things got chippy between the two as they exchanged words afterward and both Reese and Jones were assessed “soft-ass double techs.”
Cunningham disagreed and called out referees for being inconsistent.
She also mentioned that she received a technical foul for pointing her finger during the Fever’s 86-77 win over the Mercury on June 22.
“I think that’s good playoff basketball. Let them talk a little s–t to each other,” she said. “It’s just so weird and inconsistent, of course this is what I go back to, of how the refs call it.
“If you’re not going to call someone chasing someone down and on the court and talking s–t to them and then if someone gets a block … and Angel sticks her ground too don’t call a tech. Let them play goodhearted basketball.”
The Dream beat the Liberty 85-83 on Friday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn to advance to the WNBA Finals.
The No. 6 Fever lost 94-83 to the No. 3 Aces in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.
The Dream and Valkyries will meet in Game 1 of the 2026 WNBA Finals on Saturday.
The best-of-seven series begins at Chase Center in San Francisco.
