It’s just the third week of the 2024 WNBA season but the drama is already high! Remember how Chennedy Carter bumped Caitlin Clark with her shoulder, knocking her to the floor? Well, that seems like nothing in front of what took place during the Dallas Wings vs Minnesota Lynx game.

In the high-stake game, soon after halftime with the clock showing 4:22 left in the third quarter, Uzun was having a determined run to bridge the deficit. However, her momentum was painfully stalled by Lynx’s guard Courtney Williams. That’s when the Wings’ Turkish rookie got hit in the face and Williams picked up a flagrant foul. Lynx’s head coach, Cheryl Reeve, received a technical and was fuming on the sidelines. But what really took place prior to the clash?

With the ball in Uzun’s hands, she called for a screen from Teaira McCowan. However, Williams, who was guarding Uzun, got stuck in between the two Dallas players. The collision resulted in her falling to the floor. After losing her balance, she inadvertently kicked Uzun in the face, leaving the Turkish player in a lot of pain.

Following this, the Wings coach demanded a closer look at the situation. On evaluating it, the referees upgraded it to a flagrant foul against Courtney Williams, as seen in Women Hooping’s YouTube video. Consequently, the head coach of the Lynx, Cheryl Reeve, was not satisfied with the ruling and threw her clipboard onto the court while arguing with the refs. With this, Reeve too picked a technical foul.

Both teams were highly competitive and kept going back and forth throughout the game. Lynx won the game 87-76. However, the game at Target Center was filled with foul calls, with 31 fouls being called. Wings also picked up two technical fouls. This game followed up on yesterday’s heated matchup between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky. While most fans tuned in to witness the latest chapter in Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s rivalry, it was Chennedy Carter who gave Clark a tough time.

Caitlin Clark continues to receive rough treatment from WNBA players

The physicality of the league has been the number one problem for the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer. While Chennedy Carter got away with the physicality, the foul was later upgraded to a flagrant one. What did she do? Carter had bumped Clark with her shoulder. The latter was knocked down before an inbound pass during the third quarter.

But that was not the only shove that the Fever rookie received yesterday. In fact, Carter had pushed her before as well, and so had her NCAA rival Angel Reese. Clark, too, could be seen going at Carter right before the Sky guard shoved her to the floor.

While Indiana won by one point (71-70) to give their home crowd some relief, head coach Christie Sides was not exactly happy. In her pregame conference tonight, Sides responded to the away-from-ball foul being upgraded to a flagrant foul. She said, “You know, this league is awesome, it is a physical league. We get after it. But that was a non-basketball play. That needed to be called in the moment. We got out with a one-point win yesterday and that could have changed the game a little bit. So, they just in that moment, need to make that call.”

USA Today via Reuters

Even Clark spoke about the incident later. “I wasn’t expecting it… It is what it is. It’s a physical game. Go make the free throw and execute on offense, and I feel like that’s kind of what we did.” However, Carter, who initially declined to comment about the incident, later shared that she wouldn’t change her playing style and that she has no regrets despite the backlash.

But coming back to Indiana, they lost tonight against the Liberty, and Caitlin Clark had one of her worst nights with only 1 of 10 shots going in. Sides spoke up on the mental and physical exhaustion that the team has had. Indiana is the only team to have played 11 games in 20 days. They have only won two so far.