Unrivaled: Why was Angel Reese ejected in Rose’s win over Laces?

For the first time in league history, Unrivaled went a little off the rails, with Saturday night’s second game between Laces and Rose featuring an ejection, multiple injuries, a fouled-out player remaining in the game and overall confusion.

Through the chaos, Rose prevailed, 83-69, over Laces. In the first game, Mist, finally, captured the club’s first win, defeating Vinyl 77-67.

Gray gets Rose the win amidst chaos

By the end of this game, Laces were down to three players, and one of those players was Stefanie Dolson, who already accumulated six fouls. Dolson, per Unrivaled rules, was allowed to play, as Laces, already missing Alyssa Thomas, were also without the services of Tiffany Hayes and Jackie Young.

Hayes did not return after halftime, having entered concussion protocol. Young, playing in just her second Unrivaled game, went down with an injury in the fourth quarter, falling on the foot of her Las Vegas Aces’ teammate Chelsea Gray after a 3-point attempt.

At that point, Rose had a double-digit lead and was approaching the winning score, even as they were down to four players. Already without Brittney Sykes due to injury, Angel Reese was ejected just before halftime, tossed for quickly accumulating two technical fouls.

Defending Hayes on the perimeter, Reese clapped at her. When Hayes attempted to drive past Reese, Reese committed a foul before waving off Hayes. An official assessed Reese a technical foul, which she protested, thus earning a second technical that resulted in her disqualification from the game. While it is difficult to sort out exactly what happened, expelling Reese from the game seemed like a severe overreaction to an acceptable dose of taunting.

Before the ejection, Reese already had corralled 15 rebounds in just seven minutes, while also scoring six points. Her teammates kept up the dominance of the glass after her dismissal, outrebounding Laces 42-23. Rose also shot better than Laces, while also registering more assists. Those factors, as well as a big scoring game from Gray, helped Rose get the 83-69 win.

Gray scored 28 points, including the game winner. She went 3-for-4 from 3, in addition to dishing eight assists. Azurá Stevens also stepped up in Reese’s absence, finishing with 23 points and eight boards.

Laces were unable to overcome injuries and exhaustion, losing their second-straight game. While Kayla McBride led the team with 20 points, her shooting percentages were mortal, rather than other-worldly. The club now gets a much needed week off, which hopefully will allow Thomas, Hayes and Young to rest, recover and return to the court.

Mist no longer winless

A game-winning jumper by Aaliyah Edwards gave Mist their long-awaited first win, 77-67 over Vinyl.

Bedeviled by poor 3-point shooting throughout the Unrivaled season, Mist eschewed triples, taking just six shots from behind the arc. The club, instead, scored incredibly efficiently inside the arc, with an overall field goal percentage of 58 percent. Edwards was a fantastic 8-for-9 from the field, while Courtney Vandersloot finished 5-for-7.

With Vandersloot at the controls, Mist did a good job a leveraging the scoring threat of Breanna Stewart to find easy, often open shots at the basket, whether Vandersloot converted them herself or found Edwards. Stewart still finished with another double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Vinyl, in contrast, struggled to get their shots to fall, missing way too many attempts around the basket. Those misses, on top of a cold night from behind the arc, with Arike Ogunbowale and Rhyne Howard combining to shoot 2-for-10 from 3, resulted in the club suffering a third-straight loss. Dearica Hamby did all she could, pouring in 35 points and grabbing 15 rebounds, but the rest of the roster did not provide enough production.

Mist and Vinyl both are back at it on Monday, with Mist looking to make it two-straight dubs against Phantom (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT) and Vinyl trying to avoid dropping a fourth-straight game against still-undefeated Lunar Owls (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT).