1 day Ago By Yahoo Sports
INDIANAPOLIS — There are people who are going to make it a powder-keg moment. It’s not. The dustup between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese broke open the truth.
This is a rivalry, even if Fever players — Clark included — want to duck it. There’s geographical proximity, histories dotted with pivotal data points and bad blood that dates to college. And isn’t that what the WNBA wanted? The college-to-pro pipeline isn’t constructed to merely allow the happy-go-lucky, merch-buying fans through the doors.
Though there were plenty of them to watch the Indiana Fever demolish the Chicago Sky, 93-58, in the season opener at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Saturday, there has to be more to it than that. Clark and Reese bring a healthy amount in their bags, even when they’re not the ones actively digging into them. There’s a reason this matchup landed in the late afternoon ABC window on the first Saturday of the season.
You think the league schedule-makers and media-rights holder ESPN didn’t know what they were doing? They have, mercifully, caught on. The dialogue will flow this week on sports shows and pages leading into Memorial Day weekend. "Did you see Clark and Reese go at it?" observers will ask, grabbing drinks at the cooler.
The former’s triple-double. The latter’s standard double-double. Their progression, their growth, their game styles, their futures.
If that moment warranted a flagrant, or the offsetting technicals that ensued. It doesn’t have to be overly serious. It doesn’t have to mean anything in some greater societal conversation.
This stuff happens all the time in sports. “Let’s not make it anything that it’s not,” Clark said, interrupting an incredulous Boston after learning she drew a technical in the fracas. (Clark said she’d cover the $200 tech penalty, and Boston later doubled down, saying she really didn’t know she got called for a technical in the moment.
) Boston grabbed Reese near the shoulder, attempting to keep the Sky forward away from approaching a retreating Clark. The chippiness slowly escalated up into the moment halfway through the third quarter and erupted afterward. Clark, beginning to heat up as the Fever built a 14-point lead, already blocked Reese and stripped a potential rebound from her hands a minute prior.
Reese then pushed Natasha Howard under the basket to bring in a rebound, and Clark, pointing at the missed call on Howard, reached in hard for the ball, smacking Reese’s arm in the process. “It was just a good play on the basketball,” Clark said of the incident that will fuel no shortage of debates. “I’m not sure what the ref saw to upgrade it, and that’s up to their discretion after watching the initial whatever happened during the play and then whatever happened after.
If you watch a lot of basketball, it’s a take foul to put them at the free-throw line or rather give up two points. I’ve watched a lot of basketball in my life. That’s exactly what it was.
I wasn’t trying to do anything malicious. That’s not the type of player I am.” Reese went to the ground, immediately jumping up to walk toward Clark and talk as the Fever superstar moved toward the Fever's bench.
The Sky bench emptied to grab Reese and keep her near it. “Basketball play,” Reese said. “Refs got it right.
Move on.” Given who was involved, the refs might have stepped in to quell the heat. There’s too much history between the two that their professional franchises inherited.
There’s a reason you hate a rival. Clark knows that. For no less than the fourth time in 24 hours, she found a way to answer a question regarding the budding rivalry (to the media and fans, she insisted) between the two WNBA teams separated by 182 miles.
Clark's grandfather, Bob Nizzi, coached high school football at Iowa’s Dowling Catholic in the state’s largest prep class. They, of course, had a rival, she explained: Valley. And her entire family knew what that meant.
“I was taught growing up, if we were driving by the high school, to hold my breath because I couldn't breathe that air,” Clark said. “I know it's kind of funny, but rivalry is always a big thing.” The fertilizer to Saturday’s dustup was every little watering before it, and there was plenty in an offseason glitzing brighter for the Fever than Clark’s silver-and-red special edition Rookie of the Year Kobe sneakers.
The Fever, dubbed “Showtime” by so many, owned the league chatter. Clark grew stronger, shown clearly in photos as she watched the Kansas City Chiefs with Taylor Swift, attended the Masters with her family and supported her alma mater in her own Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The front office hired the best coach not available — Stephanie White and the Connecticut Sun cutting ties seemed destined for her Fever hiring — and drew free agents with established pedigrees.
After all that, the Fever are undoubtedly title contenders. The Sky, though trending to be better than a year ago, were washed out in the big picture with less dazzling stars and a first-time head coach in Tyler Marsh. Reese starring in Unrivaled and working with Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie — an improvement shown in an early 3-pointer Saturday— didn’t crack the attention.
By the time the Fever took full control of the game in front of their sold-out crowd of 17,274 with nary a Sky fan to be seen, it all boiled over. They lightly booed the Sky’s entrance and booed Reese’s introduction. The disdain grew after the dustup and as opposing players chirped.
The participants may never acknowledge it. It took a while for New York and Las Vegas to fess up to the bit. Liberty fans surely relished in watching their first WNBA champions accept their rings with the Aces in town on Saturday.
Clark and Reese are in Year 3 of dismissing anything between them, often brushing it off to fans feeling a certain way or the media's portrayal. “As a player, you approach the game at the same every single time, or you should,” Clark said ahead of tip-off. “That's how you should approach every single game.
You prepare the same way you come ready to play.” They can prepare the same and ride the tired lines. But the words don’t matter as much as the actions.
It’s a rivalry, no questions asked..
