Valkyries’ win against Dream spoiled by fan who threw sex toy onto court: ‘It was super dangerous’
The Valkyries earned one of their best wins of the season on Tuesday when Cecilia Zandalasini hit a game-winning shot with three seconds left to hold off a furious Atlanta Dream comeback on the road.
The two teams went tit-for-tat in the fourth quarter and gave the fans at Atlanta’s Gateway Center Arena one of the best games of the season.
However, that was not the hot topic of discussion on social media following the conclusion of Tuesday’s game.
With the two teams tied at 75, the Valkyries had the ball with under a minute to go in the fourth quarter. As Golden State tried to find a clean look at the basket, a bright green sex toy was thrown onto the court.
The game did not stop for a few seconds as the referees decided to play out the rest of the possession. Moments later, during a dead ball, officials in the arena stopped play and a police officer picked up the object.
The play took on a life of its own as clips of the incident went viral on social media after the game. However, Valkyries players and coach Natalie Nakase pointed to the incident as a player safety issue.
“First of all, it was super dangerous,” Zandalasini said after the game. “When we found out what it was, I guess we started laughing. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The object was thrown in the direction of Veronica Burton as she had the ball and was coming off a screen. The sex toy bounced near the free-throw line and ended up somewhere on the left sideline.
According to Meghan L. Hall of USA Today, who was at Tuesday’s game, police took the object out in a plastic bag and covered it with a towel. As of Tuesday evening, there have been no reports of any fans being arrested or kicked out for the incident, and Hall said in a X post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter that she saw police investigating but did not see anyone being escorted out.
Neither the Atlanta Dream nor the WNBA responded to requests for comment on the incident on Tuesday night.
The play did not have much bearing on the outcome, but Valkyries players were visibly upset in the moment as the incident came during a crucial time in the game.
“One of our players almost got hit with it, so yeah, that’s very dangerous,” Hayes said after the game.
Valkyries color commentator Morgan Ragan took exception with the officiating crew allowing play to continue even after the object was thrown onto the court.
“As a player, you want to feel protected. You don’t know what’s going on and then there’s confusion on that final possession,” Ragan said on the KPIX+ broadcast.
Nakase echoed Ragan’s sentiment as she believed a timeout should have been called once the object was thrown onto the court.
“I thought that would have been an automatic timeout. Let’s reset. Let’s make sure everyone’s OK. You don’t want the object on the ground and then someone is dribbling past it,” Nakase said.