The final moments of an intense contest between Caitlin Clark‘s Indiana Fever and Angel Reese‘s Chicago Sky have come under heavy scrutiny for how they unfolded.
Trailing the Sky by a point with fewer than 12 seconds remaining, the Fever scrambled to get into position to score.
Clark secured a defensive rebound and worked a pass into Kristy Wallace, who missed a layup from close range. The Fever were able to get the ball back for another attempt, backing it up out toward the 3-point line where Clark went to work.
She worked a one-two game with fellow star Aliyah Boston, but Caitlin Clark ended up with the ball in her hands with seemingly a look at a deep, albeit contested shot. She passed it up to hand off to Boston, who then took a 22-footer. She missed and the game was essentially over.
Critics came out quickly to bemoan Clark’s passive approach.
“Caitlin Clark should have taken the last shot,” former football player and current ESPN analyst Robert Griffin III wrote on Twitter. “That’s why you have her. For moments like that. Period.”
He wasn’t the only one to chime in on social media about the potential faux pas by the rookie.
“Caitlin Clark has to start being a lot more selfish,” wrote Emmanuel Acho. “Clark has to realize that her shooting a contested shot is more productive than her teammate shooting an uncontested shot. The ‘right basketball play’ on paper, ain’t always the right one in real life.”
Reasonable criticisms or not, Caitlin Clark had better be prepared to deal with them. The enormity of her star power has put the WNBA under a brighter spotlight than it’s ever been under.
She’s at the center of it, and with that comes the additional scrutiny.
For her part, Clark is adapting quickly to the professional level. Despite the loss to the Sky, Clark dished out a career-best 13 assists in the game.
She also recently became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach the 200-point, 75-rebound, 75-assist mark.
So even if she could have made a different play in the waning moments on Sunday, something tells us Caitlin Clark will use it as a learning experience going forward. That’s a scary proposition for the rest of the league.
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