Nothing happened.
Well, sure, a WNBA game happened Sunday afternoon, with the Sky roaring back to beat the Fever 88-87. Shots were made. Passes were delivered. Rebounds were plucked.
But no one was hit upside the head. No one was hip-checked to the floor.
There was an offensive charge but no criminal charges.
It was a fun, exciting game without threat to life or limb. Imagine that.
If a national TV audience expected Wintrust Arena to be the Garden of Good (the Fever’s Caitlin Clark) and Evil (the Sky’s Angel Reese), sorry. Somehow the two rookies coexisted on the same court. Those looking for blood out of basketball’s best current rivalry might not have gotten what they wanted, but they saw frantic, back-and-forth action. Those hoping Clark would score 40 points while delivering Joan of Arc’s speech in Shakespeare’s “Henry VI’’ got 17 points and a franchise-record 13 assists from the 22-year-old star.
Reese had 25 points and 16 rebounds. It was her eighth consecutive double-double, extending her WNBA rookie record.
“I’m a dawg,’’ she said afterward. “You can’t teach that.’’
You can’t teach star power, either. Clark and Reese are not the future of the league. They’re the present of the league. Clark is the reason arenas are selling out. Reese is the reason the drama level has soared.
They were two big reasons why this game was so entertaining, but they had a lot of help. The Sky were down 15 points at one point, then put on a furious fourth-quarter comeback to the delight of a sold-out crowd of 10,387 fans.
You wanted fireworks? You got fire instead. You got Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon. She was doing a live interview with ESPN broadcasters in the third quarter when Kamilla Cardoso made a layup and was fouled.
“Yes, yes, yes!’’ Weatherspoon screamed, interrupting the interview. “That’s where it starts!’’
Teresa Weatherspoon got hype mid interview 😅 pic.twitter.com/9rqiqIG5jv
— espnW (@espnW) June 23, 2024
Can you imagine Gregg Popovich doing that? Wouldn’t it be great if he did?
Is any of this enough for a public suddenly interested in the WNBA to stick around long-term? It should be. I do know that the WNBA shouldn’t want its biggest selling points to be jealousy and ugliness, which has been the case since the arrival of Clark and Reese.
How many tuned in to see conflict and how many tuned in for basketball is unknown. How many people watch NASCAR in hopes of seeing a crash? Also unknown.
It’s all one big mystery for the WNBA. The league has to figure out a way to make the most of it, whatever it is. This game proved that high-energy basketball is worth staying for.
But make no mistake, Reese vs. Clark is the draw.
“I’m pretty sure the only people who view this as a rivalry are all of you,” Clark said to media members Friday.
I’m pretty sure she’s wrong. Last week’s game between the teams was the league’s most-watched game in 23 years, averaging 2.25 million viewers, with a peak of 3 million. That was the game in which Reese was hit with a flagrant-1 foul for smacking Clark in the head while the guard was driving to the basket.
This time, Reese seemed more interested in dominating the boards and trash-talking Fever forward NaLyssa Smith. And Sky guard Chennedy Carter, who knocked Clark to the floor when Clark wasn’t looking in an earlier game, beat up Indiana with 23 points.
Still, there were moments. Diamond DeShields blocked a Clark shot in the first quarter, then stared her down. It was like that.
The Sky did a good job of bottling up Clark, but that left Fever players open. She could have had many more assists. She made nice passes on three consecutive possessions in the second quarter, but teammates missed three layups.
She’s the Fever’s best player, but sometimes that seems to be news to her teammates. They certainly don’t defer to her on the court. They should.
She needs to hit the weight room. She’s not always strong enough to fend off more powerful defenders. Despite that, she still has the game to dominate. She’ll own the league as a player when she puts on more muscle.
For one game at least, the Sky owned Indiana. They had lost the previous two games to the Fever. They play again Aug. 30 in Chicago. Something tells me it will still be a rivalry at that point.
