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Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts was ejected in the third quarter of Game 4 of the WNBA Finals after getting face-to-face with a referee. Despite walking away, Tibbetts was hit with a double tech and had to immediately leave.<\/p>\n Tibbetts is the first head coach to ever be ejected in a WNBA Finals game.<\/p>\n Mercury associate head coach Kristi Toliver, a two-time WNBA champion, took over as acting head coach after Tibbett’s exit.<\/p>\n This was just another tough hit for the Mercury, who did not have Satou Sabally available due to a concussion, and earlier in the game saw star Alyssa Thomas hurt her right shoulder — although she did return to the court.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tibbetts’ ejection happened with 2:41 remaining in the third quarter. At that point, the Las Vegas Aces were up 68-54. However, his team seemed to get fired up by the incident and started gaining some momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n “That’s what the Finals are about,” said Mercury small forward Kahleah Copper during an ESPN sideline interview. “I think the refs aren’t doing a good job tonight, I’m sorry, but we just gotta keep our heads. Keep our heads and just try to chip away.”<\/p>\n Cheryl Reeve is right: The WNBA’s physicality problem has hit a crisis point and officiating needs to change<\/p>\n \n Lindsay Gibbs <\/p>\n There have been a lot of talks about officiating during these playoffs, but Tibbetts had been one of the coaches to not heavily criticize referees.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the Mercury vs. Lynx semifinals, Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve was ejected for going after officials, amongst other things.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Getty Images Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts was ejected in the third quarter of Game 4 of the WNBA Finals after getting face-to-face with a referee. Despite walking away, Tibbetts was hit with a double tech and had to immediately leave. Tibbetts is the first head coach to ever be ejected in a WNBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[3223,8703,410,413,13893,16329,13122,6725,3116,16328,3102],"class_list":{"0":"post-27339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-coach","9":"tag-ejected","10":"tag-finals","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-mercury","13":"tag-mustwin","14":"tag-nate","15":"tag-phoenix","16":"tag-quarter","17":"tag-tibbetts","18":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}