Doyel: Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese drama, a surprise tech and WNBA milestone. Fever opener had it all

Indianapolis Star

18-05-2025

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark doesn't see what's the big deal. She saw an opposing player near the rim, with the basketball, about to score. In a few minutes Fever coach Stephanie White is going to make her team's defensive mentality clear — 'Nobody's going to get anything easy against us,' White will say — and that's what Clark is doing, right now, in the third quarter of the Fever's first game of the 2025 WNBA season:
Making sure nobody from the Chicago Sky is getting anything easy.
It just so happens, the player about to get something easy is Angel Reese. Yes, her.
Yes, them.
So, it's a big deal. Should it be a big deal? Probably not, no. But Reese was on the short end of a bad score — the Fever were comfortably on their way to a 93-58 victory Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse — and she was near the rim, about to score, about to get something easy … and Angel Reese wasn't in the mood to take a hard foul.
Especially not from, you know.
Her.
So now Angel Reese, after losing the ball and her balance and ending up on the court, gets off the floor and stalks toward Caitlin Clark. She's not faking it. This isn't performative. Angel Reese is furious — Angel Reese is furious with Caitlin Clark — and within seconds they will both be trending on social media. Before the end of the third quarter, 'Angel Reese' will be the No. 1 trending topic in America, and it won't be pleasant for her.
But at this moment Reese is heading toward Clark, and Fever teammate Aliyah Boston is getting in the way, fending off Reese. What's Clark doing? Nothing. She's turning her back and walking away slowly, nonchalantly, because it's like she'll tell ESPN's Holly Rowe after the third quarter and a roomful of reporters after the game:
'If you watch a lot of basketball,' Clark says, 'it's a take foul. … I wasn't trying to do anything malicious. It's not the type of player I am. I went for the ball. It's clear as day on the replay — you watch it — it shouldn't have been upgraded.'
But it was upgraded, referees studying the replay on a courtside monitor and deciding Clark had committed a flagrant foul, the decision stunning Clark and White as they stood near the Fever bench.
Pretty soon, 'Flagrant Foul' is trending nationally on social media. Yeah, because of them.
By game's end, 'triple-double' will be trending nationally.
Yes.
Because of her.
Other than the latest rift in the Clark-Reese rivalry — there's a Wikipedia page for it, and that's the title — this game went almost perfectly for the new-look Indiana Fever.
First of all, Gainbridge Fieldhouse was full well before tipoff, with the giant videoboard showing various female fans with their signs. Here were three:
'Caitlin Clark you're my Maya Moore. I traveled 1,500 miles from NB (New Brunswick, Canada) to see you.'
'I'm 2 but feel 22 (Clark's number).'
'I'm 85 years old and ready to play Caitlin 1 on 1.'
Caitlin Clark transcends caustic national borders and an 83-year age gap because she does things like this on Saturday: recorded a triple-double with 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists. It was preordained from the moment Angel Reese started chasing after her. What do I mean by that? Only this: At that moment Clark had only an outside shot at a triple-double — 14 points, five rebounds, four assists with 4:38 left in the third quarter — but she's going to get hot in the fourth quarter. Clark drills a pair of 3-pointers, picks up four assists in about three minutes, grabs a few rebounds here and there, and goes to the bench with six minutes left and this line: 20 points, nine rebounds, 10 assists.
The Fever lead 81-51 with less than 4½ minutes left when White looks down the bench, says something, and Clark rises and walks toward her. The crowd knows the deal. The crowd is cheering … until Clark is sent back to her seat. Now the crowd is groaning, but wait. What's this? Clark's rising again, heading back toward White, past her to the scorer's table.
Now the crowd's going crazy, and soon Clark is the only starter on the court — for either team — and with 2:22 left she grabs a defensive rebound to finish it off (remember: 20, 10 and 10) and gets pulled from the game.
That was one of two special individual moments for the Fever. The other one? Well … hang on. It's coming.
But first, the bigger picture. A year after thinking it would build slowly around its young nucleus of Boston (19 points, 13 rebounds, five blocks), Clark (added four blocks and two steals to her triple-double) and Kelsey Mitchell (15 points), the Fever organization decided it had a group that could win now — with the right front office, coaching staff and supporting cast. Changes were made. New COO: Amber Cox. New team president: Kelly Krauskopf, back again. New coach: White, also back again.
New supporting cast: WNBA All-Stars DeWanna Bonner and Natasha Howard, two-time WNBA champion Sydney Colson, forward Brianna Turner, guard Sophie Cunningham.
Same, only better: Boston, Clark and Mitchell.
Because now they don't have to be The Big Three. This team has a Big Five, a starting lineup for the ages. Put it like this: Bonner on Saturday became the No. 3 scorer on the WNBA career list, passing Tina Thompson. That was the other special individual moment, and Bonner celebrated her historic seventh point — a made free throw — by shouting 'Yes!' as the ball approached the rim, then raising her hands for about 15 seconds as coaches, teammates and fans applauded.
'(Bonner) is such a light, and such a positive leader for us in the locker room,' Boston said.
'(Bonner) is a hall of famer, a legend,' Clark said. 'Not just a great player, but a great person. The strongest voice in our locker room is hers.'
That's one addition to the starting lineup. The other? Howard, who had 15 points, five rebounds, three steals, two assists, a blocked shot and a team-best plus-minus of plus-26. The Fever defense, White's focus to enhance a clearly offensively gifted group, held the Sky to 29.1% shooting from the floor and had 13 steals and 10 blocked shots.
Everything wasn't quite perfect, though. With a new coaching staff and more new players on roster (six) than returners from last season (five), the Fever are a work in progress. We saw that at the end of the first half, when Clark had the ball near the top of the key with about 10 seconds left and was waving for Howard — in the corner — to come set a ball screen. Howard wasn't sure where to go, and with the seconds ticking away, Clark darted the opposite direction, to the left, to her beloved spot 25 feet from the basket, and hit a 3-pointer before the halftime buzzer.
'We're still finding our chemistry together — it's not perfect yet,' Clark said later. 'But we just have so many weapons, and that's what's so fun.'
But also…
Here's Clark on the latest Angel Reese incident:
'Let's not make it anything it's not,' is how she started her answer. 'I'm not sure what the referees saw, that's up to their discretion. If you watch a lot of basketball, it's a take foul…'
You've seen the rest of that quote. What you've not seen is what happened when a reporter mentioned Clark was called for a flagrant foul, and Reese and Boston were hit with offsetting technical fouls, meaning no additional free throws.
The technical on Aliyah Boston came as news to Aliyah Boston.
'Wait, what?' Boston was saying. 'Oh no!'
Boston mentions the accompanying fine she expects to receive from the league office, then asks Clark:
'Will you pay half?'
Clark literally pats Boston's hand and says: 'I got it for you. Don't worry.'
All good. Well, locally — and even with Reese, whose in-game fire turned to postgame ice as she told reporters of the incident: 'Basketball play. Refs got it right. Move on.'
But let's see what the national media — and the influencers on social media, which feels like the same thing these days, doesn't it? — do with the latest Clark-Reese incident. Their rivalry, if that's what we're calling it, started during the 2023 NCAA title game when LSU and Reese beat Clark's Iowa team. That was the night Reese waved her hand in front of her face at Clark in that dismissive 'You can't see me' gesture (ask your kids), then celebrated the victory by gesturing toward Clark by pointing out which finger she would put the championship ring.
Last year, Reese's teammate in Chicago — Chennedy Carter — decked Clark with a hard foul and Reese clapped.
Reese and Clark have tried to tamp down talk of their rivalry, even as it has been among the contributing factors to the WNBA's surge in popularity — a fact Reese enjoys pointing out — but then came Saturday, and Clark's hard foul, and Reese's reaction and then social media's reaction.
It was just the first game of 44 this season. Lots of chemistry to be learned, for the Fever, and lots of games to be won, perhaps even a march toward the 2025 WNBA Finals. Lots of headlines to be generated, too. The country cares about Caitlin Clark, and this Fever team. Does it care too much? Sometimes it seems that way, yes. The trolls are out, and they're everywhere, and they're not listening when Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese agree that what happened Saturday was a basketball play.
'Move on,' Reese said.
'Let's not make it anything it's not,' Clark said.
Would be nice, wouldn't it?
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.