In Saturday’s matchup between the Seattle Storm and the Atlanta Dream, the big deal was that the hosts had a big 105-90 win, and their rookie Flau’jae Johnson had her second-best outing. Instead, a moment late in the game got all the attention when Johnson approached her former LSU teammate Angel Reese for a handshake, and got ignored. But if you ask Sports Illustrated’s WNBA analyst Robin Lundberg, Reese should not be getting heat for this.
“When Angel Reese snubs the dap from FJ Johnson, people are going to react,” Lundberg said on his WNBA coverage. “Even if Angel didn’t do anything wrong, and even if the timing from FJ was a little odd.
“Look at the time on the clock. There are 1:20 left in the game, and the Storm are up 14 points. It’s not typical. At least I’d have to go back and check, but to me it doesn’t feel typical to try to dap somebody up when they’re checking out for the final time in a game when you’re blowing them out. It could almost feel like rubbing it in a little bit. Angel’s probably pissed off in that moment, so I get where she was coming from in the interaction as well.”
With just 1:20 left in the game and Seattle clearly in the win column with a 103-89 lead, the teams began emptying their benches. Johnson, giddy with her 24-point and 11 rebound performance, was celebrating the night with her teammates. But as she was walking towards Jade Melbourne, she noticed Reese walking past her. The rookie walked over and extended her hand for a quick handshake, but Reese didn’t even acknowledge it.
Even in-game announcers, including WNBA legend Rebecca Lobo and play-by-play caller Ryan Ruocco from ESPN, noticed and called it out. But even they understood that it wasn’t because of any love lost between the two, but because Reese was still in the focused zone. After all, the game had not ended, even though the Dream had clearly lost, and it wasn’t exactly a premature handshake, something like we’ve seen NBA player Anthony Edwards do before against the Spurs.
However, considering their history, everyone did leap into assuming that the two were still not friends.
Back in LSU, the two helped head coach Kim Mulkey bring a National Championship to Baton Rouge in 2023. Things, however, went spiraling down between the two. Amid Reese’s four-game suspension during her senior season, Johnson’s mother, Kia Brooks, got into an online quarrel with Angel Reese’s mother, Angel Webb. She once also tweeted about Reese’s grades being bad. Later, both basketball players also confessed to their broken friendship.
“I still support Flau’jae. We aren’t as close as we used to be,” Reese revealed in the debut episode of her Unapologetically Angel podcast after the 2024 WNBA season. “And there’s no hard feelings or anything, but we aren’t as close as we used to be.”
A few days later, Johnson also came out publicly.
“Me and Angel, we aren’t as close as we used to be,” Johnson said in an interview with the New York Post then. “But I still support her 1000%. I was proud of her, just being in the W and breaking records.”
Yet, Angel Reese remains a professional and knows a handshake is just a gesture to show respect. But she is also just as competitive. Reese did not have the best game by her standards. She had 17 points while shooting 4-10 from the field and grabbing 9 rebounds. Johnson, meanwhile, had her second-best scoring night of the rookie season, with 24 points on 75 percent shooting efficiency.
In Johnson’s defense, she is still learning the ropes of the WNBA, and, in Reese’s defense, the intensity of these games always gets to you. The two did share a quick high-five before the game tipped off, and surely must have talked after it. What happens next, we’ll see when they meet each other again next month.