A’ja Wilson just dropped a record-setting 36 points to close out the Fever, and somehow nobody’s bringing it up, because the only thing anyone’s talking about is the elbow that left Caitlin Clark bleeding with no whistle in sight.
That’s the real story here. The league just posted its biggest audience ever, and the officiating hasn’t caught up to it — a no-call like that used to vanish in a building half-full of people who weren’t paying attention. Now it’s the only clip from an elimination game anyone remembers, and that’s the league’s Clark problem in one four-minute stretch.
Let’s start with what actually happened, because it got buried fast. The Aces beat the Fever 94-83 in Game 3 on Thursday, closing out a best-of-three first-round series 2-1 and sending Indiana home. Wilson went 11-for-18 from the field, including 2-of-3 from deep, to go with 10 rebounds, two blocks and an assist in 37 minutes, and it was her 12th career 30-point playoff game — a WNBA record. She’s already rewriting the record book this postseason, and a closeout game is supposed to be the showcase moment.
Instead, everyone’s phone is full of the fourth quarter. Late in the period, Aces guard Jewell Loyd’s elbow caught Clark in the mouth as both players went up for a rebound, no foul called, the play not the kind that gets a second look upstairs. Clark went to the sideline bleeding, pointed out the blood to an official, and checked back into the game anyway. I play in a Tuesday night rec league in Hoboken that doesn’t bother with refs half the time, and even we would’ve blown that dead.
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/2105865775613649116
Caitlin Clark’s bloody no-call is the only thing anyone remembers from the game that ended her season, and she didn’t have the kind of night that makes anyone forget it either. She finished 6-for-18 from the field and 3-for-12 from three for 18 points, with a game-high six turnovers against two rebounds and four assists. This is the second straight year the Aces have ended Indiana’s season — Vegas needed five games and overtime to do it in last year’s semifinal, and this time it took exactly three. The Fever’s season under Stephanie White ends in the same building, just faster.
None of that makes the no-call retroactively okay, and it shouldn’t have to. Wilson’s night wasn’t close and isn’t up for debate, 36 points on 61 percent shooting against a defense built to slow her down settles that part by itself. But a missed call on a bleeding star doesn’t quietly disappear anymore, not with this many people watching, and the league spent two years begging for exactly this kind of attention.
Be careful what you ask for.
