Caitlin Clark didn’t get the foul calls she was looking for during the Indiana Fevers’ 99-88 loss to the Minnesota Linx on Friday.
After the game, Clark referred to instances in which she was hit by opposing players but refs didn’t blow the whistle. Clark said those moments had an emotional impact on her that she hopes to control better.
“I thought I got fouled a couple times there in the second half on mid-range jump shots,” Clark said. “It happens. Sometimes they get calls, sometimes they don’t. It is what it is. I think I settled a little bit too much for mid-ranee jump shots, but I thought I got bumped a little bit, and I was honestly trying to shot-fake them to get them to foul me.
“I mean, I think I could have done a little bit better of a job controlling my own emotions.”
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But Clark added that she doesn’t believe her emotions need to change.
“I think there’s a line and sometimes your passion, your emotion can get to you,” Clark said. “But that’s never something I would ever change or anybody on our team would change.”
At one point in the game during the third quarter, Clark got knocked to the floor by Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier. Collier’s arms appeared to hit Clark in the upper head and shoulder area when Clark tried to score in the paint.
The officials did not call a foul on Collier, and Clark lay on the floor with her arms spread out to her sides.
Clark didn’t have any urgency in getting back up, and the Lynx made it down the court on a fast break and scored. That score put the Fever in a 10-point hole that they never dug out of.
Clark’s coach, Christie Sides, addressed the incident after the game, too.
“When she’s upset or mad — that’s what we’ve been working on, trying to figure out how to get past those moments,” Sides said. “She’s got to learn that, in those moments, I need my point guard to have a cool head, get us in whatever we need to be in offensively, and if it’s not a foul call that you thought, you have to get back.”
“There’s a reaction to all of our actions, and we have to make sure we don’t put ourselves in a worse spot with those kind of moments.”
Clark has had to manage her emotions quickly since coming to the WNBA with regard to hard fouls.
Last week, Chicago Sky player Diamond DeShields sent Clark flying across the floor for a foul that was later upgraded to flagrant-1. After the game, DeShields posted a screenshot of her notifications list on Instagram, which included a string of hate comments from a user.
Clark took an infamous illegal hip check from Chicago Sky forward Chennedy Carter on June 1. Carter refused to answer questions about the incident at the postgame press conference but used her social media to repeatedly criticize Clark.
Sky rookie Angel Reese struck Clark in the head with her arm while trying to block a pass during a game on June 16.
Former NBA All-Star Joakim Noah believes the Fever should look to address the issue by signing a player who can dish the punishment back against opponents who are too physical with Clark.
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“If I was the owner of the Indiana Fever, I would get a real enforcer in there to protect her,” Noah told Fox News Digital during an interview at “NBA Night” in the Emirates Suite at the U.S. Open in New York on Wednesday.
Noah acknowledged that Clark may be getting hit by opposing players because they are aware of the talent she brings as a difference-maker on the court.
“Sometimes I feel like she is getting hit because she is a very talented person,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we’re in the business of winning games, so if I’m the owner [of the Indiana Fever], I’m getting a real enforcer in there.”
However, Noah believes that the physical treatment Clark has received has been great for the WNBA.
“I think it’s great,” Noah said when specifically asked about the fouls that have occurred against Chicago. “I think it’s all entertainment.”
ESPN broadcaster Holly Rowe issued a similar sentiment to Noah’s in an interview with Fox News Digital last month.
“I think it’s good for the game,” Rowe said. “I kind of love it because it is supposed to be salty, that’s why it’s competitive, that’s why it’s sports.”
Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley spoke out against the players who have undermined the positive attention Clark’s rookie season has brought to the WNBA this year during an appearance on the “Bill Simmons Podcast” on Wednesday.
“These ladies, and I’m a WNBA fan, they could not have f—ed this Caitlin Clark thing up even worse if they tried,” Barkley said on the show. “This girl is incredible,” Barkley said. “The number of attention, eyeballs, she’s brought to college and the pros, and for these women to have this petty jealousness, and you’re saying to yourself, ‘Damn, what is going on here?'”
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