Less than two minutes into the Indiana Fever vs. New York Liberty on Saturday, Caitlin Clark picked up her sixth technical foul of the season. After taking hard contact while fighting through a Jonquel Jones screen, Clark turned to the officials looking for a whistle. But as she screamed, “Call it,” the referee hit her with a tech instead. She is now two techs away from a one-game automatic suspension. But will that make her change her approach? Not really.
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“I just yelled at him to call it. Obviously, it was a pretty quick technical but whatever,” she said in her post-game conversation with James Boyd.
When asked if the guard thought she needed to change her approach because she’s so close to the suspension threshold and a $1500 fine, CC said “No” with a smirk.
Caitlin Clark’s intensity on the court is one of the biggest reasons why she is such an exciting player to watch in the WNBA.
However, due to her fast-paced, aggressive style of play, she currently leads the league in turnovers at 4.6 per game. Yet that same approach also helped her produce one of the greatest performances in WNBA history, as she exploded for a career-high 45 points against the Seattle Storm.
The Indiana Fever is widely considered a championship contender, with two of the best offensive players on its roster – Caitlin Clark & Kelsey Mitchell. So the last thing they want right now is for their floor general to sit out over technical fouls.
While head coach Stephanie White didn’t have much to say about the tech itself, she admitted that there have to be conversations about Clark’s foul count, calling it “a long season” and stressing that the team has to be “strategic in using our technical fouls.”
Now, those conversations will only become more important as the season moves forward. Caitlin Clark has already missed four games this season due to injuries. Having CC sit out another game due to a technical foul is definitely not something Indiana would want, especially since they’re on an upward trajectory, having won 7 of their last 10 games.
So for now, Indiana will have to trust that its biggest star can continue playing with the same edge that defines her game while staying on the right side of the officials.