How Angel Reese’s Controversial Defensive Play Led to a Rare Technical Foul in Dream-Liberty

Liberty star Breanna Stewart hadn’t picked up a technical foul in nearly a decade. That changed at the end of New York’s 95-84 loss to the Dream on Monday night, when Angel Reese made a clutch defensive play on Stewart in the final two minutes of the game.

With the Liberty down eight points, Stewart drove into the paint and tried to get a shot off but got stopped by Reese, who swatted the ball away and picked up the steal. Immediately afterward, Stewart threw her hands up in the air protesting what she believed was a foul on Reese. Her passionate appeal to a nearby ref elicited her first tech since her second season in the league—and arguably a soft one at that—and just her third tech of her career.

Take a look at that late-game play below:

Angel Reese with the CLUTCH steal on Breanna Stewart to seal the victory for the Dream down the stretch! pic.twitter.com/2grcpq5mpf
— WNBA on NBC and Peacock (@WNBAonNBC) September 22, 2026

Stewart defended her actions in her postgame presser and doubled down on her criticism of the officiating.

“That absolutely was [because of] the no-call,” Stewart said of her frustration leading up to the tech. “She slapped the s--- out of my hand. So yeah, you gotta see that. Baseline ref, you gotta see that.”

Stewart also half-jokingly said, “Angel should pay my fine,” on her way out of the press conference. Per WNBA penalty rules, players are automatically assessed a $500 fine for each of their first three technical fouls of the season.

I love Breanna “she slapped the shit out of my hand” Stewart 🤣 pic.twitter.com/lFEL0bimLe
— ericaf455💙 (@ericaf455) September 22, 2026

Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu backed her teammate and didn’t think Stewart’s brief on-court protest warranted a tech.

“If I wanted to see Stewie get a tech for the first time since 2017, I would have wanted something a little bit more animated than that because I think there’s a lot of players in the league that do that nightly and don’t get techs,” Ionescu said, via the New York Post’s Madeline Kenney. “So I was a little underwhelmed with the tech. If it was a stat like that, I would have wanted to see something crazy.”

Did WNBA refs miss a no-call on Angel Reese prior to Breanna Stewart’s technical?

There’s no good replay video that clearly shows Reese making contact with Stewart’s hand before her steal late in the fourth quarter. Some fans shared zoomed-in videos on social media of Reese’s defensive move and it looks like Reese’s hand may have caught Stewart’s hand or wrist, but it’s still hard to tell.

In any case, Stewart certainly believes it was a missed foul. And it was a costly one, with the Liberty losing 88-80 at that point. A foul call would have given Stewart a pair of free throws to cut down the Dream’s lead, but instead her technical, combined with Atlanta’s ensuing possession, resulted in a three-point swing in favor of Reese & Co.

Reese, for her part, enjoyed yet another productive game in which she shot 50% from the field (her fourth straight game doing so) and finished with 18 points along with 10 rebounds and one block. In her first season with the Dream, Reese has been quietly building a DPOY case for herself as perhaps the best rebounder in the league right now, and she’s been steadily improving her offensive game, too.

“Some of that is she’s been working, she’s feeling more comfortable shot, she’s feeling more comfortable with her offensive moves and finishing,” Dream coach Karl Smesko said of Reese’s recent dominance. “... She’s just gotten better as a basketball player because she’s worked at it, and she feels more comfortable within the system she’s in now.”

I thought this was a great point that Karl Smesko made about Angel Reese having to learn a new system every year since she was rookie as he explains why he thinks Angel has taken her game to another level. pic.twitter.com/DXmu8FSHCk
— Natalie Esquire (@natfluential) September 22, 2026

Monday’s win moved the Dream (29-14) to the No. 4 seed ahead of the Fever, which would give Atlanta home-court advantage for what could be the biggest playoff run of Reese’s young career thus far (she previously played for the Sky in her first two WNBA campaigns).

Both Reese and Stewart are coming off a gold-medal-winning run with Team USA at the FIBA World Cup in Berlin, where Stewart was named tournament MVP after helping lead the Americans to their fifth straight gold. With their international success in the rearview mirror, both star players are locked in on helping their respective teams win some silverware this fall—and as for whether Reese will really cough up the $500, that’s for her and the Liberty vet to figure out on their own.

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