The WNBA GOAT hit a game-winning 3 in her season opener, but a clock error ruined the moment

• Diana Taurasi hit a game-winning three in the Phoenix Mercury's first game of the 2021 WNBA season.
• But a clock error stifled the thrill of the clutch shot.
• Referees used hand-held stopwatches and video replay to determine whether the shot counted. It did.

It's tough to strip the excitement away from a Diana Taurasi game-winning shot, and even tougher to do so on the opening night of a highly anticipated WNBA season.

But that's exactly what happened in the Phoenix Mercury's first game of the 2021 season - a grudge match against the Minnesota Lynx squad that ousted them from last year's playoffs.

With 31.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Mercury trailed by one point, and Minnesota passed around the perimeter to drain time off the clock. Around the 10-second mark, Brianna Turner and Brittney Griner pressured reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Crystal Dangerfield into a turnover. Griner scooped up the loose ball and fired off a pass upcourt to Taurasi with 6.8 seconds on the clock.

"Any time you get the ball into Diana Taurasi's hands in big-time, end-of-game situations, I mean, we've seen what happens," Phoenix head coach Sandy Brondello said after the game.

Taurasi, the WNBA's all-time leading scorer, dribbled once, twice, and behind the back before picking up her dribble and draining a clutch three over Kayla McBride's head. Game over, it appeared.

Except that the clock still showed 6.8 seconds remaining.

"Thankfully Diana made a really great shot there," Brondello said. "But I could just remember, 'Hey 6.8? That was the same!'"

As the Lynx took a 20-second timeout, the officials convened on the sideline to figure out what had gone wrong. Both teams looked on in confusion as the referees huddled around the video replay monitor and tried to judge whether Taurasi had gotten the shot off before time expired.

Minutes ticked by as the review dragged on. The officials even got a set of stopwatches in an attempt to more accurately determine the number of seconds left on the clock. Twelve long minutes later, they landed on 1.1 seconds remaining. Taurasi's shot was good.

"They were just trying to pin down what the final countdown looked like," Taurasi said. "They didn't have great angles to see the game clock, so they kept coming over to say that they were trying to get as close to the right time as possible."

"That's what they came up with," she added.

A second was enough time for Minnesota to inbound the ball, but it didn't leave McBride the room she needed to take a shot before the buzzer sounded. The Mercury came away with the 77-75 win, but Taurasi, her teammates, and their fans were robbed of a thrilling moment.

In their Sunday game, Taurasi and company lost by eight points to the Connecticut Sun. Now they head to Washington, DC to take on the Mystics in a Tuesday-night showdown. That same evening, the Lynx will look to earn their first win of the season in a road contest against Sabrina Ionescu and the undefeated New York Liberty.