Caitlin Clark’s Fever Linked to Postseason Alert Amid WNBA Broadcasters’ Unsettling Reveal

After multiple scuffles and ejections against the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky, the Sun players found themselves in yet another conflict. During last Monday’s clash vs the New York Liberty, as Marine Johannes walked over to assume her position, Marina Mabrey gave an elbow to the gut while setting a screen. The Liberty star was in no mood to appreciate that. So when she turned to confront the gesture, Saniya Rivers stood up for her teammate, shoving Johannes in the process. It resulted in a double-foul for Mabrey and Johannes, while Rivers was assessed a tech.

Analyst Rachel DeMita addressed the situation on the Courtside Club on August 29. The podcaster played a clip from the Sun vs Liberty game where the broadcaster was heard saying, “How many skirmishes are there in a Connecticut Sun game? They average a skirmish a game.” To this, DeMita solemnly said, “I warned you guys about this from the beginning. The teams that are at the bottom, who have nothing to lose, are literally some of the most dangerous teams you can go up against.”

The analyst then read out an apt fan comment on X that said, “It’s cheating and it’s disgusting and it’s giving people injuries where they’re out for the season…And then somebody else replied, and they said, ‘The announcers don’t think it’s funny. They did say afterwards that they were happy the refs took control and called the technical foul on Rivers because it sets a precedent for the game not to continue to have this kind of play.'” DeMita’s reaction to the whole discussion? “…True because this happened with Indiana Fever players.”

The Indiana Fever has just five games left in their calendar, and while they’re not a 100% lock for the playoffs, they’re pretty close to it. So while Caitlin Clark is working her way back to the court, and the postseason picture is not fully confirmed for Stephanie White’s team, they’ve got to be wary of teams like Chicago, which they still have a game left against. Notably, the Sun have been at the bottom of the table since the initial weeks, thanks to a poor offseason. After last night’s Mystics vs the Valkyries game, four teams are now out of playoff contention. And physicality, as DeMita noted, is going to only go up from here. Case in point: The brief rebound battle between Sun’s Bria Hartley and Sophie Cunningham that resulted in an MCL tear.

On that occasion, Hartley had accidentally fell on Cunningham’s leg underneath the Sun’s basket as she attempted a pass. And while Cunningham has since clarified, “There was no ill intent. I think it was a basketball play. I was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. She fell,” the conversation about physicality is not to be ignored either. As DeMita noted, “That has really been the whole message of this season, is the referees need to control the game. And it comes from the top down. It comes from the referee training. If I were the WNBA commissioner, my first order of business would be either getting in new referees or making sure that they were trained properly for this league because this overtly physical style of basketball, like one, it’s just not exciting to watch. Like, it’s not a good product. And two, you’re injuring the players.”

Speaking of injured players, when will the Indiana Fever get their superstar back? How is her progress coming along? Well, Caitlin Clark’s teammate just gave us a glimpse at the star’s mental state during this injury.

Lexie Hull has nothing but compliments for injured Caitlin Clark

It hasn’t been easy for Clark to sit through the season. But trust Lexie Hull to show up in support. “I’ve been impressed with her maturity through it,” Hull said to Mark Medina about CC’s recovery and persistence. “It’s not easy to go day-to-day and continue to think, ‘Maybe this is my day, maybe it’s not.’ But she continues to come in and be the person that she is.” 

We’ve seen CC courtside, cheering her team on enthusiastically, signing relics, and more, but the 23-year-old never really expressed the struggle. However, Hull reassured the masses that Caitlin Clark is not letting the injury get to her head. “She just continues to show up. She’s there. We know she’s there. She shows up, makes smiles and makes jokes. It would be really easy to just come in and do treatment and not be a happy person. But she’s a happy person through it all. We’re really grateful for that.”

Clark’s return is supposed to be just around the corner. The six-foot-tall guard has started practicing and will be evaluated on a day-to-day basis. Optimistically, we should see her before the playoffs, and to be honest? She’ll need a couple of games to get loose again. It will be interesting to see how Indiana will adjust to having Caitlin Clark back, but we just know they’ll deal with that problem rather happily.