Caitlin Clark’s intensity got her into a bit of trouble in the fourth quarter as the Indiana Fever star was putting on an offensive clinic in the game’s final period.
Indiana dropped its fourth consecutive game – a close 88-84 loss to the Connecticut Sun – despite a 17-point effort from Clark.
Clark was called for a technical foul after she yelled at the refs following a steal by the Sun’s Alyssa Thomas to go the other way.
“It’s a f–king foul,” Clark appeared to bark at the official after she was forced to foul in order to prevent an easy layup.
“Just the technical foul, can’t get that,” Clark told reporters after the game. “A little frustration of how the game was reffed. But it is what it is. That’s out of your control. I thought our team put ourselves in position to make some plays to try and win down the stretch and the Sun always came up with big plays.”
But Clark had been an offensive juggernaut for the Fever in the second half despite injuring her ankle in the second quarter, giving Fever fans a good scare in the process.
She rolled her ankle midway through the second quarter as she tried to go around a screen.
Clark remained on the floor in pain for several moments before she got up on her own and exited the court for the rest of the first half having just eight points.
“Honestly I turned it pretty good,” Clark explained about her ankle. “I think it just got caught. I don’t think I stepped on anybody, I’m not sure from the replay, but I don’t have the best ankles in the world. It was a little tight this morning, but nothing really out of the ordinary. It felt good. I just wanted to get a lot more tape on it as fast as I could to get back out there playing.
“It’s hard, especially when I felt like I kind of started the game off good and you get hurt and have to sit out the last five minutes of the first half. Got to wait at halftime, so kind of hard to get into a flow there so it kind of took me to the end of the third quarter to get back into a little bit of a flow.”
She joked that every basketball player has dealt with an ankle injury and that said “I’ll be good.”
However, Clark did what she could to try and lift the Fever to its first win of the WNBA season.
She put up seven of her 17 points in the fourth quarter – where she has been impressive during the first three games of her pro career – knocking down a 3-pointer, two foul shots and a jumper in the final 10 minutes of the game.
The 3 came from deep beyond the arc after Aliyah Boston came up with a big block that led to Clark’s shot from the logo to put the Fever up 70-68 with just over seven minutes remaining in the game.
The game remained tight the rest of the way before Tyasha Harris pulled the Sun within one when she hit a 3 with 3:51 left to play and a free throw by DeWanna Bonner tied the game at 76 moments later.
A three-point play by Harris pushed Connecticut ahead by three, but a Clark finger-roll layup with 1:02 left on the clock evened the score at 82.
Harris broke an 84-84 tie with 11 seconds left with a pair of free throws and Alyssa Thomas hit two free throws with five seconds remaining to seal the win.
Clark finished the night shooting 5-of-11 from the field and 3-of-7 from beyond the arc. She also had five turnovers in the loss.
