Caitlin Clark doesn’t expect an apology from Sky guard Chennedy Carter — and that, in her eyes, is OK.
“Basketball’s competitive,” Clark told reporters Friday before the Fever’s win over the Mystics, according to ESPN. “I get it. Sometimes your emotions get the best of you — it happened to me multiple times throughout the course of my career. People are competitive. [Carter is] having a tremendous season. She’s played great basketball — in my eyes, probably in first place for Sixth Player of the Year.
“She’s been great off the bench for them. She had 25 [points] here last night and really helped them win the game.”
When the Fever faced the Sky on Saturday, Carter body-checked Clark to the court before an inbound pass, and that led to plenty of criticism after Carter declined to answer questions about what unfolded in the immediate aftermath postgame and then later said she didn’t have any regrets about what transpired — with a social media post saying she’d “rather you hate me” in between.
The foul was upgraded to a flagrant 1 by the WNBA the following day, though the referees didn’t look at the call in the moment Saturday, which head coach Christie Sides said needed to happen.
But that all led to opinions about the physicality that has greeted Clark since she became the No. 1 overall pick, the reaction by her teammates and the “not appropriate” — in the words of Sky head coach Teresa Weatherspoon — hard foul by Carter in the first place.
“That’s just not where my focus is,” Clark told reporters, according to ESPN. “That’s not what I think about on a day-to-day basis. I think about my team. I think about ways I can get better. It’s just basketball at the end of the day. There’s no grudges, there’s nothing like that.
“It’s a sport, it’s competitive. It’s not going to be nice all the time; that’s not what basketball is. And I think that people that play that at the highest level understand that.”
And, after those comments, Clark produced one of the best games of her young WNBA career, too, just five days after being held to a season-low three points in a loss to the Liberty.
She hit seven 3-pointers against Washington — and collected 30 points altogether — en route to the Fever’s narrow 85-83 win Friday, after entering the night averaging 15.6 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.
