Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark got hit in the eye and knocked to the ground, while also doing some shoving of her own, during a testy and physical game against the Connecticut Sun on Monday night in Indianapolis.
The Fever emerged with an 88-71 win after a game that featured a pair of skirmishes, including a fight in the final minute that led to three ejections.
Speaking to reporters after the game, Indiana coach Stephanie White blamed “bad officiating,” which she said is a league-wide issue.
“This is what happens,” White said. “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, right? And when you allow them to play physical and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete. And they’re going to have their teammates’ backs. It’s exactly what you expect out of fierce competition.
“So I started talking to the officials in the first quarter. And we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was gonna happen. So they’ve got to get control of it. They’ve got to be better.”
Things appeared to be chippy between Clark and Connecticut’s Jacy Sheldon throughout the game, with ESPN cameras showing Clark giving Sheldon a bit of a shove as the two were exchanging words during the second quarter.
Then, during a play midway through the third quarter, Clark got poked in the eye by Sheldon and responded by giving the Sun star another shove. Connecticut’s Tina Charles stepped in and wagged her finger toward Clark, then the Sun’s Marina Mabrey pushed Clark to the ground.
Sheldon was called for a flagrant 1 foul, while Clark, Mabrey and Tina Charles each received a technical foul. When Clark was asked about the technical foul during the postgame news conference, White jumped in and said she’d handle questions about the officiating.
Clark and Charles each led their teams with 20 points apiece.
Later, with less than a minute left in the game and the Fever up by 17, Sheldon made a steal and was taken down hard by Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham. A scuffle ensued, with Cunningham, Sheldon and Connecticut’s Lindsay Allen eventually being ejected.
After the game, Sun coach Rachid Meziane said Cunningham’s foul on Sheldon was “disrespectful.”
“When you are winning a game by 17 points, and you doing this … for me, [it’s] a stupid foul,” Meziane said.
Asked about the same play, White said, “It was a flagrant foul.” When pressed on whether Cunningham might have made the move in defense of Clark or the team, White simply repeated, “It was a flagrant foul.”
With the win, the Fever earned a spot in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game against the Minnesota Lynx on July 1.
‘I don’t want this all on camera,’ gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter says in testy interview
Former Rep. Katie Porter, the 2026 gubernatorial candidate who has a narrow edge in the polls, raised eyebrows Tuesday when footage emerged of her apparently ending a television interview after becoming irritated by a reporter’s questions.
The footage shows CBS Sacramento reporter Julie Watts asking Porter, a Democrat, what she would say to the nearly 6.1 million Californians who voted for President Trump in 2024, and the UC Irvine law professor responding that she didn’t need their support if she competed against a Republican in the November 2026 run-off election to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.
After Porter highlighted her experience winning a closely divided Orange County congressional district, she grew palpably irritated by Watts’ follow-up questions about her dismissiveness about needing support from voters who supported Trump.
“I feel like this is unnecessarily argumentative. What is your question?” Porter said.
Watts responded that she had asked every other candidate similar questions in relation to Proposition 50, the redistricting ballot measure that Newsom and other California Democrats put on the ballot in a special election in November.
Porter said she would seek every vote she could win, but then grew testy over follow-up questions.
“I don’t want to keep doing this. I’m going to call it,” Porter said, saying she objected to multiple follow-up questions. “I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation. … And if every question you’re going to make up a follow-up question, then we’re never going to get there.”
She later said, “I don’t want this all on camera.”
Porter, a protege of Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, won election to Congress in 2018 and gained attention for grilling executives and her use of a white board to explain complex policies. The 51-year-old unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2024 and returned to teaching law at UC Irvine.
On Tuesday night, Porter’s campaign said that the interview continued for an additional 20 minutes after the heated exchange but did not offer further comment.
The former congresswoman’s Democratic rivals in the 2026 gubernatorial race seized on her comments, and Democratic strategists not associated with any candidate in the race also cringed.
“When you’re governor, you’re governor of everyone, not just the people in your party. It’s a bad look to say you don’t want or need votes from certain Californians, even those you really disagree with,” said Elizabeth Ashford, who served as a strategist for Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris when she was the attorney general of California.
“But, also, even good candidates have bad nights,” Ashford added. “This was a miss for Katie, but not every interview is going to go great.”
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Fever’s Caitlin Clark pushes and gets pushed during testy win over Sun
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark got hit in the eye and knocked to the ground, while also doing some shoving of her own, during a testy and physical game against the Connecticut Sun on Monday night in Indianapolis.
The Fever emerged with an 88-71 win after a game that featured a pair of skirmishes, including a fight in the final minute that led to three ejections.
Speaking to reporters after the game, Indiana coach Stephanie White blamed “bad officiating,” which she said is a league-wide issue.
“This is what happens,” White said. “You’ve got competitive women who are the best in the world at what they do, right? And when you allow them to play physical and you allow these things to happen, they’re going to compete. And they’re going to have their teammates’ backs. It’s exactly what you expect out of fierce competition.
“So I started talking to the officials in the first quarter. And we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was gonna happen. So they’ve got to get control of it. They’ve got to be better.”
Things appeared to be chippy between Clark and Connecticut’s Jacy Sheldon throughout the game, with ESPN cameras showing Clark giving Sheldon a bit of a shove as the two were exchanging words during the second quarter.
Then, during a play midway through the third quarter, Clark got poked in the eye by Sheldon and responded by giving the Sun star another shove. Connecticut’s Tina Charles stepped in and wagged her finger toward Clark, then the Sun’s Marina Mabrey pushed Clark to the ground.
Sheldon was called for a flagrant 1 foul, while Clark, Mabrey and Tina Charles each received a technical foul. When Clark was asked about the technical foul during the postgame news conference, White jumped in and said she’d handle questions about the officiating.
Clark and Charles each led their teams with 20 points apiece.
Later, with less than a minute left in the game and the Fever up by 17, Sheldon made a steal and was taken down hard by Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham. A scuffle ensued, with Cunningham, Sheldon and Connecticut’s Lindsay Allen eventually being ejected.
After the game, Sun coach Rachid Meziane said Cunningham’s foul on Sheldon was “disrespectful.”
“When you are winning a game by 17 points, and you doing this … for me, [it’s] a stupid foul,” Meziane said.
Asked about the same play, White said, “It was a flagrant foul.” When pressed on whether Cunningham might have made the move in defense of Clark or the team, White simply repeated, “It was a flagrant foul.”
With the win, the Fever earned a spot in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game against the Minnesota Lynx on July 1.
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