Angel Reese has overtaken Caitlin Clark in a metric no WNBA athlete wants to lead. After picking up another one against the Washington Mystics in their 4th straight loss, ‘Double-Double Barbie’ has now moved to six, leading the WNBA in technical fouls. Reese’s foul trouble has reached a point where even her teammate is now openly voicing her anger at the officials and throwing caution to the wind in the paint.
“I’m going to get fined, so I don’t really care. Tonight, the officiating was awful, horrible,” Jordin Canada said in the post-game conference. “I think in the crucial part of the game, when they started to make a run, the officiating kind of helped them out… I don’t know how many times Angel has to get beat up in the paint for her to get a foul call. It was blatant tonight. Every time she had a fast-break layup, she was getting hacked. In the paint, she was getting hacked – no foul calls.”
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“But the other way, we can’t play physical. Anytime we tried to play physical. It was always a foul call. So I think officiating has to be better,” Canada further added. “For some reason, again, I don’t know what Angel has to do. I don’t know what we have to do to get a foul call. But I thought tonight was horrible. I thought all three refs were terrible.”
In a season that started 12-4 and currently stands at 12-8 for Atlanta, Angel Reese picked up her sixth tech midway through the third quarter after finishing a highly contested shot over Shakira Austin from underneath the rim. Now, this sequence sent Austin to the floor holding her face in visible pain, and the officials initially called a foul on the Mystics center.
But Washington challenged their call, and after a review of the play, the foul was overturned to hand Reese a tech foul for flailing her arm in an unnatural motion and striking Austin in the face.
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As per the WNBA rules, Angel Reese will be fined $1000 for this. She had already received a warning letter from the WNBA after picking up her fifth technical foul. But if she picks up two more before the end of the regular season, she’ll automatically receive a one-game suspension along with further fines.
But inside the Dream locker room, the belief is that Reese simply doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt from officials. And that’s exactly what head coach Karl Smesko hinted at last week.
“I do think it’s hard for her [Reese] because I think you know sometimes she does not get the benefit of the calls,” the coach said. “Like, if she shuffles a pivot foot, she’s going to get called for travel, and then you’ll see much more egregious travels at the other end, and there won’t be anything.”
Whether that’s truly the case or not, the whistles continue to pile up at the worst possible time. So right now, Atlanta has two battles to fight: snapping its losing streak and making sure its biggest star stays on the floor. Because from here, every whistle on Angel Reese will carry far more weight.
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The post “I Don’t Care”: Dream Teammate Risks WNBA Punishment for Angel Reese After 4th Straight Loss appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.