After suffering back-to-back losses to the Atlanta Dream, the Indiana Fever had just one goal in mind against the Phoenix Mercury: get a win. And while they accomplished that mission with an 86-77 comeback victory, by the time the final buzzer sounded, the result was overshadowed by a heated fourth-quarter confrontation involving Caitlin Clark, DeWanna Bonner, Sophie Cunningham, and several other players that resulted in five technical fouls and one ejection.

But if anyone expected Cunningham to make a bigger deal out of the altercation, they were left disappointed.

“It’s fine. Sometimes, it’s a part of the game,” the Fever guard said in her post-game conversation with the reporters. “We kept our heads. We could’ve stopped it a little bit sooner. But at the end of the day, we kept our heads, we finished the ball game well, and that’s what we need to do moving forward.”

Now, she called it “fine” and just “part of the game” before moving on, but that hardly captures how quickly things spiraled on the court. So, let’s take a walk through the whole drama.

It all started with less than eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter when Clark and Bonner got tangled up while battling for position in the paint. That situation quickly spiraled, and both of them were seen exchanging words immediately after the whistle, which happened to be a personal foul on CC.

That’s when Sophie Cunningham stepped in.

The Fever guard started pointing her finger at Bonner, which prompted the Mercury player to do the same. But at this point, Bonner just got more frustrated, and her teammates had to step in to take her away from the whole mess.

But things only escalated, as Bonner’s fiancée, Alyssa Thomas, and Fever forward Myisha Hines-Allen also got involved. Once the situation calmed down a bit, a double technical was issued to DeWanna Bonner & Sophie Cunningham and Alyssa Thomas & Myisha Hines-Allen, while Caitlin Clark also picked up a tech of her own.

Still, Sophie Cunningham made it clear that these moments are simply part of competing.

“In games, in professional sports, sometimes things get chippy, and that’s okay,” she further added. “It’s okay for women to stand their ground a little bit and to have some extracurricular points at times because you have to hold your ground. But we’re not worried about that. We need to focus on winning the ball game. We need to focus on what we can do better defensively, moving forward on Wednesday.”

The reason this incident caught so much attention had everything to do with the tension between Sophie Cunningham and Bonner dating back to last year, when the Mercury star briefly joined the Fever.

Bonner joined Indiana during the offseason but left the team after only nine games, eventually returning to Phoenix. This left Sophie Cunningham a little frustrated, as she revealed on her podcast, Show Me Something, that Bonner never properly addressed her former teammates before leaving.

Those comments created plenty of headlines at the time and added another layer whenever the Fever and Mercury shared the floor.

So after Monday’s confrontation, reporters naturally asked Cunningham whether she ever received an explanation from Bonner.

“It’s old news,” Cunningham said. “No. And we never will. I don’t care anymore.”

Now, whether everyone believes what she said remains a debate. After all, fans saw plenty of techs and finger-pointing in their recent clash.

But Sophie Cunningham will get another chance to back up her words as the Fever and the Mercury are set to meet again on Wednesday, which will now suddenly become one of the most intriguing games on the schedule.