Mercury's Nate Tibbetts irked by WNBA's suspension process - ESPN

Phoenix Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts called out the WNBA and defended his star player, Alyssa Thomas, ahead of the team's matchup against the Toronto Tempo on Saturday.

The comments came as Thomas served her one-game suspension for a play earlier in the week involving Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, in which Thomas «recklessly [made] contact with her fist to the throat area,» according to the WNBA. Fever coach Stephanie White called the play a «cheap shot.»

No foul was called during the game, but after the league reviewed the incident the next day, it deemed it worthy of further punishment.

«I'd like to hit on my disappointment in the suspension process by our league and our leaders in the W. This was not a thorough investigation in my opinion,» Tibbetts said. He added that no one from the WNBA reached out to him, Thomas or team security to understand the situation from their perspective.

«The people in this league know who AT is,» he said. «She's a competitor, she's a winner, and she's tough. The one thing she is not is cheap.»

After Saturday's 89-80 win over the Tempo, Thomas' teammates also came out in her defense.

«We're with AT,» guard Kahleah Copper said. «We just wish it would have been handled the right way. We wish somebody also called her and checked on her and made sure that she was okay. I don't think it played out how it should have professionally.»

Mercury guard Lexi Held echoed Copper's point and said it was important for the Mercury to public support for Thomas because there were «a lot of narratives going on that were false and untrue.»

«We just kind of wanted to show our support and kind of give her a little bit of a voice because there's just a lot of narratives on the media that aren't true and