The Indiana Fever couldn’t have imagined a worse way to close out their 2026 regular season. They suffered an embarrassing 86-66 loss to the very Minnesota Lynx they defeated by 19 points just two days earlier. While some observers pointed to Indiana’s defensive struggles and offensive shortcomings, former ESPN host Linda Cohn suggested the Fever’s collapse may have been part of a larger ripple effect stemming from Tuesday’s sideline exchange between assistant coach Briann January and Caitlin Clark.

During Tuesday’s matchup against the Lynx, cameras captured January animatedly speaking to Clark and pointing at her, prompting significant discussion among fans online. However, with no audio from the interaction, there was no way to know exactly what was said between the two. While acknowledging the same, Cohn argued about what the incident left behind.

“Your biggest star cares enough to fire up the building while her team is kicking Minnesota’s butt at the time back on Tuesday. That’s a good thing,” Cohn said as per an X post by @SnapshotKyle. “And then during the stoppage, there’s January animated, pointing at Clark, apparently yelling at her. And I’m sitting there watching, thinking, what are we doing? Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable basketball explanation for it. Fine. That’s why I didn’t bring it up Tuesday night, because I wanted to wait and see. But there’s no clarification. And this isn’t the first time we’ve seen these two go at it, January and Clark, in public. And these exchanges bother me in public.”

“The reason why I bring this up and this happened Tuesday night; look at the rippling effect. Will you look at the rippling effect of what happened tonight on Thursday? And by the way, Stephanie White, this ultimately falls on you. You’re the head coach. How can you allow one of your assistants yelling at your star player when that star player was having a great game, even if she was having an awful game – You don’t do that. You don’t do that in public, where people in the first, second, and third rows can say, ‘Here, everything that was said.’ I mean, this team should be coming together right now, and it looks like they fell apart, and they did so tonight,” she further added.

Cohn’s criticism comes after Caitlin Clark had one of her best games of the season on Tuesday, finishing with 27 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds in Indiana’s 96-77 win. But Thursday’s rematch could not have looked more different.

The 24-year-old saw one of her worst performances as she managed just two points, going 1-for-12 from the field. But Clark wasn’t the only Fever player who struggled, as Indiana fell behind early and never recovered against Minnesota.

Indiana scored just four points in the opening six-plus minutes and trailed 21-4 before the first quarter was even over. The Fever managed only 19 points in the second quarter while allowing Minnesota to score 30, sending them into halftime down 62-32. By then, the game was effectively out of reach, and although Indiana outscored the Lynx 25-10 in the fourth quarter, the damage had already been done.

With the playoffs now just around the corner, the Fever will have very little time to dwell on their disastrous regular-season finale. Indiana will need to regroup quickly, but the stark contrast between Tuesday’s dominant win and Thursday’s 20-point defeat has certainly raised questions about what went wrong in between.

“These public confrontations have to stop. They’re juvenile. Handle it in the time-out. Handle it at practice,” Cohn added.

Whether the sideline incident had any role in Thursday’s collapse remains impossible to know from the outside. But with Cohn now pointing to the confrontation and calling for the public exchanges between Caitlin Clark and the coaching staff to stop, the Fever will have to make sure the noise surrounding the team does not follow them into the postseason.