Chennedy Carter’s flagrant foul in her game against the Indiana Fever last week wasn’t anything outside the norm, Caitlin Clark suggested to reporters on Friday.
Speaking ahead of the Fever’s win over the Washington Mystics, Clark was asked whether she felt the incident, which has stirred a debate over her treatment in the WNBA, warranted a public apology from Carter.
“No, basketball’s competitive. I get it,” Clark said. “Sometimes your emotions get the best of you – it happened to me multiple times throughout the course of my career. People are competitive. It is what it is.”
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“She’s having a tremendous season,” Clark said of Carter. “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.”
Clark, who equaled a career-high of 30 points to help the Fever defeat the Washington Mystics 85-83 before an NBA-sized crowd, went on to say that her focus is on her team.
“That’s just not where my focus is. 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.”
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“It’s just basketball at the end of the day,” she continued. “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.”
Carter was fouled after knocking Clark to the floor before an inbounds pass in a game last weekend. The WNBA eventually upgraded the foul to a flagrant 1.
Carter declined to answer questions about Clark after the game, but she took aim at the rookie on social media afterwards.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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