Caitlin Clark says flagrant foul for shoving Angel Reese was not 'malicious'

Michael Marot · The Associated Press

· Posted: May 18, 2025 12:27 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese agreed connected 1 happening Saturday: Their insignificant dustup during the play opener was conscionable the effect of a hoops play.

Aside from that, Clark did astir of the talking.

She downplayed the on-court fracas that occurred with 4:38 near successful the 3rd quarter, which spurred Indiana to a 93-58 triumph implicit the Chicago Sky. It started with Reese grabbing an violative rebound and Clark slapping Reese's limb hard capable to jar the shot escaped and sound Reese to floor.

When Reese got up, she tried to face Clark earlier Indiana centre Aliyah Boston stepped successful betwixt the 2 players. Clark's 3rd idiosyncratic foul was upgraded to a flagrant 1 portion Boston and Reese each drew method fouls pursuing a replay reappraisal by the referees.

"Let's not marque it thing that it's not," Clark said aft posting the 3rd triple-double of her career. "It was conscionable a bully play connected the basketball. I'm not definite what the ref saw to upgrade it, and that's up to their discretion. It's a instrumentality foul to enactment them astatine the free-throw line. I've watched a batch of hoops successful my life, that's precisely what it was. I wasn't trying to bash thing malicious. That's not the benignant of subordinate I am."

Latest section successful rivalry

Still, it's hard to disregard the evident — that the fray added different section to the rivalry that has captivated women's basketball. It dates to their assemblage days, erstwhile Reese helped pb LSU to a 102-85 triumph implicit Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes for the 2022-23 nationalist championship. Clark won the rematch successful the outpouring of 2024, a crippled that drew 12.3 cardinal tv viewers.

Less than 8 weeks later, they were squaring disconnected successful the WNBA successful the archetypal of 4 matchups. The Fever took 3 of those contests, galore featuring hard fouls. In the extremity Clark helped Indiana marque the playoffs and the Sky came up abbreviated arsenic Reese missed the last 2 weeks of games with a season-ending wrist injury.

Now this.

Reese's investigation of what happened?

"A hoops play," she said without elaborating aft scoring 12 points and grabbing 17 rebounds.

When a follow-up question was asked aboriginal successful the interview, a squad spokesperson chopped her off, saying Reese had already answered the question. And erstwhile caller manager Tyler Marsh was asked astir his thoughts, helium paused earlier repeating Reese's answer.

Indiana had a small much to accidental aft Clark finished with 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and a career-high 4 blocks.

"Nobody's going to get thing casual against us," caller Fever manager Stephanie White said. "We're going to beryllium a pugnacious antiaircraft team. I thought it was a wide play connected the shot arsenic well. One of the points of accent is we can't springiness up. But I thought it was a wide play connected the ball."

Crew main Roy Gulbeyan disagreed.

"The foul connected Clark met the criteria for flagrant foul 1, for upwind up, impact, and travel done for the hold of the near manus to Reese's back, which is deemed not a morganatic hoops play, and truthful deemed unnecessary contact," helium said. "After the foul, determination is simply a carnal taunt method connected Boston and a verbal method connected Reese, which offset."

Boston whitethorn person been the astir surprised, not adjacent realizing she had been called for the method until aft the game. She reacted by putting her hands connected her face, looking amazed and asking if she truly had drawn the technical.

But the calls intelligibly changed the game.

After Reese missed the archetypal of 2 throws, Gainbridge Fieldhouse erupted successful cheers. Reese made the 2nd and Chicago added a layup connected the ensuing possession to adjacent to 56-45.

Then the Fever closed the 3rd 4th with 9 consecutive points to widen the borderline by 20 and ne'er fto Chicago get person than 18 the remainder of the mode arsenic they matched the second-largest triumph borderline successful franchise history.

"I went for the ball, wide arsenic time successful the replay," Clark said. "You ticker it, you cognize it shouldn't person been upgraded. Again that's up to the refs' discretion, but I admit A.B. having my back."