The Indiana Fever's dominant season-opening win on Saturday was marred by an incident in the third quarter in which star Caitlin Clark committed a hard foul on Angel Reese.
During the play, Clark stuck out her arm to prevent Reese from making an easy layup and drew a common foul which was later upgraded to a flagrant.
However, a video replay shows Clark may have had an ulterior reason for fouling Reese: She was simply defending her teammate. Fever forward Natasha Howard was in the paint looking to grab the defensive rebound when she was blatantly pushed from behind by Reese. Clark could be seen raising her hands to point out the foul, but the refs didn't blow their whistle.
Seconds later, Clark made the decision to foul Reese and spark a controversial chain reaction of events.
So the refs give Caitlin Clark a flagrant and ABC only shows the replay of Caitlin’s foul, but ABC doesn’t show the replay of Angel Reese pushing down Natasha Howard first or give Reese a foul? Caitlin was protecting her teammate where the WNBA refs wouldn’t. Bullshit. pic.twitter.com/eTg9hV0yIb
— Caitlin Oishi (@caitlinerin) May 17, 2025
It certainly looks like Clark was coming to Howard's defense and trying to protect her own after the refs missed a pretty obvious call.
Clark went on to finish with a triple double (20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists) in the Fever's 93-58 win for a thrilling start to her sophomore campaign.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as New Video Shows Refs Missed Call Before Caitlin Clark Hard Foul on Angel Reese.
