INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese agreed on one factor Saturday: Their minor dustup through the season opener was simply the results of a basketball play.
Other than that, Clark did many of the speaking.
She downplayed the on-court fracas that occurred with 4:38 left within the third quarter, which spurred Indiana to a 93-58 victory over the Chicago Sky. It began with Reese grabbing an offensive rebound and Clark slapping Reese’s arm arduous sufficient to jar the ball unfastened and knock Reese to ground.
When Reese obtained up, she tried to confront Clark earlier than Indiana heart Aliyah Boston stepped in between the 2 gamers. Clark’s third private foul was upgraded to a flagrant 1 whereas Boston and Reese every drew technical fouls following a replay evaluation by the referees.
“Let’s not make it one thing that it’s not,” Clark mentioned after posting the third triple-double of her profession. “It was only a good play on the basketball. I’m unsure what the ref noticed to improve it, and that’s as much as their discretion. It’s a take foul to place them on the free-throw line. I’ve watched numerous basketball in my life, that’s precisely what it was. I wasn’t attempting to do something malicious. That’s not the kind of participant I’m.”
Nonetheless, it’s arduous to disregard the plain — that the fray added one other chapter to the rivalry that has captivated girls’s basketball. It dates to their faculty days, when Reese helped lead LSU to a 102-85 victory over Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes for the 2022-23 nationwide championship. Clark gained the rematch within the spring of 2024, a recreation that drew 12.3 million tv viewers.
Lower than eight weeks later, they have been squaring off within the WNBA within the first of 4 matchups. The Fever took three of these contests, many that includes arduous fouls. In the long run Clark helped Indiana make the playoffs and the Sky got here up quick as Reese missed the ultimate two weeks of video games with a season-ending wrist harm.
Now this.
Reese’s evaluation of what occurred?
“A basketball play,” she mentioned with out elaborating after scoring 12 factors and grabbing 17 rebounds.
When a follow-up query was requested later within the interview, a group spokesman reduce her off, saying Reese had already answered the query. And when new coach Tyler Marsh was requested about his ideas, he paused earlier than repeating Reese’s reply.
Indiana had a little bit extra to say after Clark completed with 20 factors, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and a career-high 4 blocks.
“No one’s going to get something simple towards us,” new Fever coach Stephanie White mentioned. “We’re going to be a tricky defensive group. I believed it was a transparent play on the ball as nicely. One of many factors of emphasis is we are able to’t quit. However I believed it was a transparent play on the ball.”
Crew chief Roy Gulbeyan disagreed.
“The foul on Clark met the standards for flagrant foul 1, for wind up, affect, and observe by means of for the extension of the left hand to Reese’s again, which is deemed not a professional basketball play, and subsequently deemed pointless contact,” he mentioned. “After the foul, there’s a bodily taunt technical on Boston and a verbal technical on Reese, which offset.”
Boston might have been essentially the most stunned, not even realizing she had been known as for the technical till after the sport. She reacted by placing her fingers on her face, wanting stunned and asking if she actually had drawn the technical.
However the calls clearly modified the sport.
After Reese missed the primary of two throws, Gainbridge Fieldhouse erupted in cheers. Reese made the second and Chicago added a layup on the following possession to shut to 56-45.
Then the Fever closed the third quarter with 9 straight factors to increase the margin by 20 and by no means let Chicago get nearer than 18 the remainder of the way in which as they matched the second-largest victory margin in franchise historical past.
“I went for the ball, clear as day within the replay,” Clark mentioned. “You watch it, you realize it shouldn’t have been upgraded. Once more that’s as much as the refs’ discretion, however I admire A.B. having my again.”
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This story has been corrected to indicate that Boston and Reese obtained double technical fouls, not Clark and Reese.
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