Good morning! I’m Kristen Wong, your friendly newsletter writer on this fine Friday morning. How about that Fever-Aces game … were you not entertained?!
In today’s SI:AM:
Caitlin Clark, Fever have no one to blame but themselves after WNBA playoff elimination
Déjà vu can be unbelievably cruel.
A year after the Aces knocked out the Fever in the WNBA postseason, Vegas did it again, this time against a healthy Caitlin Clark.
Back-to-back playoff losses to the same foe can’t feel good for Clark & Co., who were dreaming of their first league championship since 2012. But that’s no reason for Clark to grumble at the WNBA referees for the second time this series, not when A’ja Wilson (who had 36 points!) proved why she’s the league’s best player and the defending champion Aces looked like the better team.
Following Indiana’s 94–83 loss in a winner-take-all Game 3, Clark seemed to take issue with the officiating in her postgame press conference. When her coach, Stephanie White, pointed out the free throw discrepancy (the Aces had 35 attempts to the Fever’s 20), Clark chimed in to say, “Hm. Interesting.”
At one point in the presser, Clark fiddled with her teeth, having taken an elbow to the mouth from Jewell Loyd while going up for a defensive rebound late in the fourth quarter. Indiana forward Myisha Hines-Allen helped secure the ball while Clark immediately put her hand to her mouth in visible pain after the contact. The Fever were forced to take a timeout as Clark recovered, and afterward the third-year guard walked up to a referee to show him her bloodied gums.
Clark was asked postgame whether she got an explanation of the no-call, to which she replied, “Your guess would be as good as mine.”
There’s no guessing on that play. It was, without a doubt, a basketball one. Both Clark and Loyd leapt for the rebound, but Loyd rose slightly above Clark to get the first touch on the ball, and her right elbow caught the Fever star in the face on the way down. No funny business. No malice. Just your regular basketball play.
So, why did Clark feel the need to invite speculation on the no-call? It’s possible she hadn’t seen a replay video yet. She also may have had some pent-up frustrations over how the end of the game played out, given that the Fever were a few shots away from completing an upset and booking their ticket to the semifinals.
The subtle bitterness Clark appeared to hold for the WNBA referees comes from a valid place. Earlier this season, Clark took back-to-back “cheap shots” in a game against the Mercury. On one of them, Phoenix forward Alyssa Thomas pressed her fist into Clark’s throat during a scramble on the floor; no whistle was blown during the game, but Thomas was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and a one-game suspension upon review a day later.
The WNBA’s officiating is far from perfect, even in the league’s 30th season. That’s part of the reason why soon-to-be-retired commissioner Cathy Engelbert was pleased to announce the W’s plans to launch a centralized replay center at the start of the 2027 season. The new development should help with concerns over officiating consistency—a problem that has plagued the league long before Clark’s arrival in 2024—as well as the game’s overall physicality.
While there were some questionable calls in Thursday night’s Game 3, the crew in stripes wasn’t the reason the Fever lost to the Aces. The No. 6 seed just wasn’t good enough.
“Gotta give credit to the Aces, I thought they played well, I thought they were ready to go. And that’s what championship teams do,” Clark said. “They played great, 45% [field goal percentage], 40% [three-point percentage] and they made 28 free throws. It’s gonna be easier to win than the product that we put out there, and like I said we made it difficult, but we made a lot of those shots throughout the year too.”
Kelsey Mitchell, Indiana’s million-dollar engine for much of the season, shot 7-for-23 from the field. The Fever’s botched finishes at the rim in the first half proved costly, and their 28% three-point shooting (well down from their league-leading 38.6% in the regular season) may have proved fatal. They had no answer for four-time MVP A’ja Wilson, who took over with 36 points on 11-for-18 shooting from the field and 10 rebounds. She became the first player in WNBA history to log three straight 30-point games when facing elimination. On the other side of Wilson’s masterclass was Clark, who got a valuable learning lesson in return. Her much-improved defense arguably overshadowed her 18 points, as she rose for four blocks, including this hustling effort to make up for one of her six turnovers. But in the clutch minutes of a gotta-have-it game, she did not, in fact, have it: Clark made one field goal and went 0-for-3 from deep in the final quarter.
Under the bright lights in Vegas, teetering on the brink of elimination against a franchise hardened from its last seven years of playoff success, too much went wrong for the Fever to pull out another magical act. Finally, reality came for Clark.
The best of Sports Illustrated
The top five…
… people on my sports feed last night
5. Aaron Rodgers saying he’s ready to be a father soon. Good for him.
4. John Calipari explaining capitalism in a nutshell. My former coworker and friend, Tyler Lauletta, wrote a great piece on the Arkansas coach’s comments about the Protect College Sports Act.
3. Jimmy Fallon surprising Anne Hathaway with a signed OG Anunoby Knicks jersey on his show. The Odyssey actress admitted she would rather the Knicks win another championship than get her second Oscar. One of us! One of us!
2. Chelsea Gray shaking and baking her way to 23 points, including several clutch shots, in the Aces’ Game 3 win over the Fever. They don’t call her “Point Gawd” for nothing.
1. Victor Wembanyama taking a valiant stand against sports prediction market companies. Big Soda and Big Betting will have to take this L, for now.
📺 What we’re watching today …
WNBA
Wings at Valkyries, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2
Game 3 at Ballhalla. Winner advances, loser goes home. You know the deal.
College Football
Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN
In a battle of 4-0 teams, something has to give. The Panthers have the nation’s fourth-best run defense, giving up only 53.3 yards per game. Virginia Tech running back Jeffrey Overton Jr. is one of the best in the nation, and the Hokies average 177.8 rushing yards per game.
Penn State at Northwestern, 8 p.m. ET, Fox
The Wildcats will debut their new $875 million, 35,000-seat stadium against a Big 10 rival.
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