Caitlin Clark & Sophie Cunningham DESTROY EYE POKER Jacy Sheldon & Marina Mabrey! Indiana Fever WIN!

Cup championship bound baby here, man. It got a little crazy out there, but we made it through. We're going to keep stacking the day. So, see you in the championship. Let's go. June 17th wasn't just another game. It was payback time. Remember May 30th when JC Sheldon and the Connecticut Sun left Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Coulson injured on the floor? When the dirty plays went unpunished, well, the Indiana Fever remembered everything. And when Sheldon poked Caitlyn Clark right in the eye during this rematch, something snapped. What happened next will show you exactly why you don't mess with Clark's teammates. Because Sophie Cunningham was about to deliver the most satisfying flagrant foul you've ever seen. If you support the fever, comment down below, CC and Spicy Sophie. Let's go. It was Chippy the last time these two teams faced off, too. Sophie Cunningham suffered her ankle injury in that game, but in addition to that, she actually had part of her front tooth knocked out. She made contact with JC Sheldon as King Park knocks down the triple. But what people don't talk about enough is how hard you have to work to be able to be that good. All the hours that she's spent perfecting her craft, retreating, firing, and hitting. So, she can do that. Indiana arguing the call. I mean, step back. You're late. She almost looks you in the eye. Picture this. May 30th, Indiana Fever versus Connecticut Sun. And everything went wrong for the Fever in the worst possible way. The game started normal enough. Just another matchup between two WNBA teams fighting for position. But the Sun came out with a level of physicality that crossed the line from competitive to dangerous. You could feel the tension building from the opening tip. Can we talk about the physicality for a second? Two players on the Indiana Fever got injured last night by the same player on the Connecticut Sun and that was JC Sheldon. And I tweeted about it. She was playing so reckless. I'm fine with players playing aggressive, but there is a thin line between playing aggressive and playing reckless. When you dive for a ball, you don't land on somebody's leg. She landed on top of Sydney Coulson's leg and her leg got stuck and literally twisted around. Both injuries, both Sydney Coulson and Soph Sophie Cunningham were contact injuries. Sophie Cunningham went down first with what looked like a deliberate hit. The contact was hard, too hard for what should have been routine basketball. Then Sydney Coulson got hurt in another questionable play that had everyone asking what exactly was happening out there. The worst part, JCS Sheldon was right in the middle of both incidents, playing with the kind of aggressive style that makes your blood boil. They weren't non-cont. They weren't ACLS. They weren't Achilles. They weren't they were contact injuries caused by the same player. And this kind of physicality that the WNBA just they brag about. They say it's always been a physical league. It's always that's just the heart of the W. It's it's not good basketball. And we've seen so many injuries. Paige Becker's out with a concussion. Rakia Jackson was out with a concussion. All of these injuries are contact plays. We've seen Caitlyn Clark last year get chucked to the ground. We saw Angel Reese get clos line chucked to the ground. The players continue to do it because the refs are allowing them. Why wouldn't you keep doing it if you're a physical player? Here's where the college history comes into play. Sheldon and Clark had been going at each other since their Iowa versus Ohio State days. Back in college, Sheldon made it her mission to get under Clark's skin every single time they faced off on the court. She would shadow Clark everywhere, bump her on screens, talk trash during dead balls. This wasn't just basketball anymore. This was personal. Her mortal enemy. Her mortal enemy took took out a player. JCS Sheldon. Caitlyn Clark's mortal enemy. JC Sheldon. The referees that Mayday seemed to let everything slide like they were watching a completely different game than everyone else. Hard fouls went uncalled. Dangerous plays got ignored. Clark had to watch her teammates get hurt while Sheldon walked away without so much as a warning from the officials. The frustration was building with every possession. The Fever fought hard but lost that game 85 to 83. But more importantly, they lost two key players to injuries that could have been prevented if the officials had controlled the game properly. Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Coulson were hurt and their absence would be felt in the games that followed. This is so This is a reckless play. This is reckless. It's not. It is dangerous. There is no And this angle makes it look even worse. It is dangerous. Like Sid Coulson is between her and the ball. Sid Coulson is in fact between JCS Sheldon and the ball and she dives through her knee. It wasn't even called as a foul. It wasn't even called as a foul. You could see it in Clark's eyes after that loss. The way she looked at Sheldon during the handshake line. the way she answered questions in the postgame interview. This wasn't over. Not by a long shot. The Fever would remember this game, remember who caused the injuries, and remember that the officials let it all happen. June 17th couldn't come fast enough. June 17th arrives, and Clark is back from her quad injury, and after a dominant win against the then undefeated New York Liberty, ready to face the Connecticut Sun again. This was her second game back after 3 weeks away from the court. You can tell she remembers exactly what happened last time. The way she walks onto the court, the way she looks at the Sun players during warm-ups. This isn't just another game for her. She just text me. She never texts me during the game. All right. Here is Clark splashing home a three from way downtown. Kelly escorting her back to the bench. JC Sheldon is there. with her hand in her face. The game starts with that familiar tension hanging in the air. Sheldon is guarding Clark like her life depends on it. Getting way too close for comfort. She's shadowing Clark on every possession, bumping her on screens, doing all the little things that make basketball ugly. This is the same aggressive style that hurt Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Coulson back in May. Everyone in the arena can feel what's coming. And Caitlyn Clark are talking to the official. They're both going at it saying, "Hey." Oh, there's a little extra. A little extra right there. Uh-oh. Then Marina steps in to protect JC. Third quarter hits and here comes the moment that changes everything. Clark is bringing the ball up court when Sheldon comes over to defend. She goes for what looks like a steal attempt, but her finger goes straight into Clark's eye. The contact is immediate and obvious. You can see Clark's head snap back from the impact. Third quarter we go. They're trailing by 10. Keep an eye on her and Jaci's Sheldon. Clark trying to back her down. Clark is okay. Sheldon. That was Clark hitting her in the face. Clark is upset about that. Then everybody's upset about that. Marina Mabry comes in. She decks Clark. Tempers flaring on both sides. Clark immediately grabs her face and you can see the pain and anger mixing together as she realizes what just happened. She's squinting, trying to clear her vision. But, you know, she's thinking about more than just the physical pain. This wasn't an accident. This was the same player who hurt her teammates, now coming after her with the same dirty tactics that went unpunished before. Clark does what any competitor would do. She pushes back, literally pushing Sheldon away from her after getting poked in the eye. It's a natural reaction when someone just jabbed their finger into your eye socket. Any human being would react the same way. The crowd erupts because everyone saw what really happened. But somehow the referees are about to make this whole situation worse. I mean, is that displacement? I think it is. Oh, and Marina Mabry is going to get ejected. If the officials saw that, Molina Mabberry is going to get ejected. Well, they're going to go and look at it. Look at Mabberry. She's She's got a scar on one side, a scratch on one side of her face, a scratch on the other side. It's not from the game today. I asked her about it. She's always in the mix. There's a lot of contact here. There's a scrape across the face. That's what Clark didn't like. Clark is standing there holding her eye, clearly the victim of a dangerous play. But the officials are reaching for their whistles. The arena is buzzing with confusion and anger. Fans are pointing at the replay boards showing the obvious eye poke that started everything, but the refs have their minds made up. They hit Clark with a technical foul for pushing back after getting her eye poked. A technical foul for defending herself after someone poked her in the eye. The decision made absolutely no sense to anyone watching. Clark just scored 32 points in her first game back from injury and now she's getting penalized for reacting to getting eye poked by the same player who hurt her teammates. The technical foul call sends the wrong message to everyone watching. It tells players that they can go after Clark with dangerous plays and if she reacts, she'll be the one getting punished. But this eye poke was just the beginning. Marina Mabberry was watching all of this unfold and she was about to take things to a whole different level. Take another look as we try to figure out what exactly went down. So, you see her get hit in the face. JC Sheldon doesn't like that and everybody on the team doesn't like it. Marina trying to have her teammates back. Pushes her down. You see um a little bit of drama all the way around. Marina, Charles, Clark, and Mabberry, they received technical fouls. Sheldon received a flagrant one foul. Right after Clark gets that bogus technical foul, Marina Mabry decides to take matters into her own hands in the worst way possible. Clark is still dealing with her eye injury when Mabberry comes over and does something that shocked everyone in the arena. That's what Clark didn't like. And then Mabry came in with a bump. And Mab's day is almost assuredly going to be done. Thought both teams. This wasn't basketball contact. This was straight up assault. Mabri body checked Clark like this is hockey instead of basketball, sending her tumbling backward onto the court. The hit was so obvious and so unnecessary that even casual fans could see what just happened. Clark hits the floor hard and you can see the shock on her face as she realizes another Connecticut Sun player just took a cheap shot at her. And then Marina Mabberry comes out of nowhere and chucks her to the floor. Now let's watch this in slow motion here. JCS Sheldon is guarding Caitlyn. Swipes her in the face. There's one going for the ball. Swipes her in the eyeball. Caitlin's going to have to start wearing goggles. And then Caitlyn pushes her off of her like, "Why are you still in my face?" Marina Mabberry, bad out of hell, chucks Caitlyn Clark to the ground. The entire fever bench jumps up because they just watched their star player get assaulted right in front of the referees. Players are pointing at Mabberry, shouting at the officials, trying to get someone in stripes to actually do their job. The crowd is going absolutely crazy because they can't believe what they're seeing unfold on their home court. Coach Stephanie White is losing her mind on the sideline, screaming at the officials who are somehow still not seeing what's happening right in front of them. She's gesturing wildly, pointing at Mabberry, trying to get the refs to understand that this has gone way beyond normal basketball contact. White knows her player just got targeted again and the officials are about to blow another call. Now, after this, you guys, of course, the referees are going to review the play because that's a lot of contact going on right there. That's a lot of unnecessary contact. That's a lot of nonbasketball contact happening during this play. Right. So, the three referees that I like to say, they got them straight out of Sephora because I don't think these referees have ever refereed a professional basketball game in their life. They took these referees. They were at the monitor. They looked at it for, I'm not even exaggerating, you guys, like 15 minutes. 15 minutes. They are watching this play over and over. The refs give Mabri just a common technical foul. The same penalty they gave Clark for defending herself after getting eye poked. Think about that for a second. Clark gets her eye poked and pushes the player away. Technical foul. Mabb body checks Clark to the ground in retaliation. same technical foul. The math doesn't add up and everyone in the building knows it. The announcers here are saying, "Of course, Marina Mabry is going to get ejected because that was unwarranted. She literally came out of nowhere and chucked Caitlyn Clark. There should be a flagrant one. Of course, on JC Sheldon because she swiped her and hit her in the eyeball. Whether it is intentional or not, you can still have a flagrant call foul call fouled a flagrant foul called on you. whether you are trying to intentionally hurt somebody or not. But this is what they called you guys. This is what they called. Caitlyn Clark, Marina Mabberry, Tina Charles were assessed with technical fouls on Tuesday. Caitlyn Marina and Tina Charles. Technical fouls. That's it. Technical fouls. That's it. And JCS Sheldon was assessed with a flagrant one foul. And no players were ejected. White goes off in the postgame press conference. When the officials don't get control of the ball game, when they allow that stuff to happen, and it's been happening all season long, this is what happens, right? She's had enough of watching her players get targeted while the officials stand around doing nothing. When the officials don't get control of the ball game, uh when they allow that stuff to happen, and it's been happening all season long, all season long. It's not just this game. It's been happening all season long. Um this is what happens, right? This is what happens. 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, right, out of out of out of fierce competition. So, um, I started talking to the officials in the first quarter and we knew this was going to happen. You could tell it was going to happen. So, they got to get control of it. They got to be better. The message was crystal clear at this point. The officials weren't going to protect Clark, so her teammates would have to do it themselves. Sophie Cunningham was watching all of this unfold from the bench and she was about to make sure everyone understood that nobody messes with her teammate. Final minute of the game, Fever is up big at 87 to 70 and Sophie Cunningham sees JC Sheldon with the ball one more time. The clock is ticking down, but Cunningham isn't thinking about the score anymore. She's thinking about May 30th when she got hurt. She's thinking about watching Clark get her eye poked with no real consequences. She's thinking about Marina Mabri body checking her teammate to the ground. So now let's talk about Sophie Cunningham. At the end of the game, JCS Sheldon is going for a fast break layup and Sophie Cunningham is running with her. And I remember in my head like it happened in a split second and I said, "Oh, let's see. Let's see what happens here." Cunningham remembers her own injury from that brutal May game. She remembers sitting on the bench hurt while Sheldon walked around like nothing happened. She remembers the officials letting everything slide while her teammates got targeted. Now Sheldon is driving to the basket and Cunningham sees her chance. Sophie commits a hard foul on JCS Sheldon again as JCS Sheldon is going up for a layup. Sophie bear hugs her and takes her to the ground. What I will say is Sophie did not grab her and throw her to the ground. She didn't body slam her. She didn't do anything in my personal opinion. Maybe I'm biased here, but I'm going to give you guys my straight up honest opinion on this. She bear hugged her, took her to the ground. Yes, it was intentional. It was absolutely intentional. She lines up Sheldon and delivers the most satisfying, flagrant foul you'll ever see. Cunningham wraps her up hard and pulls her down to the floor. This wasn't a basketball play. This was payback. This was justice. This was Sophie Cunningham sending a crystal clear message that nobody messes with her teammates. The officials assess Cunningham a flagrant two foul leading to her automatic ejection. Sheldon and Lindseay Allen also get tossed for their involvement in the fight. Three players ejected, but the damage is done. Justice finally got served on that court. It was to me payback for what was happening the entire game, but she did it in a way that she wasn't going to injure JC. She was just making it known like if the refs aren't going to handle it, I will handle it. We'll take care of it. But this is not what you're going to do when you come into our house. It was an intentional foul. It was a hard foul. She brought her down. But with that, you guys, JC Sheldon got up and she was ready to go. So, as you guys can see in this video, a whole scuffle breaks out. Sophie and JC are going after it. Both teams are running over trying to break it up. It kind of goes into the fan section a little bit. Clark finishes with 20 points and six assists, leading the Fever to an 88 to71 victory that felt like so much more than just a win. Natasha Howard puts up her 50th career double double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Kelsey Mitchell adds 17 points. This was a complete team effort, but everyone knows what really mattered. A rare miss at the rim for Aaliyah Boston, the league's top field goal percentage shooter in the WNBA. But it's Boston who comes up with the steal and the find to Howard. Clark working on the rookie. Clark on the drive. Hang shot too strong. There's Howard to clean up. And Clark working off the ball. Cups off the stagger. Third year in her WNBA in terms of setting up her teammates. Clark behind the back beat inside. Two more for How. This wasn't just beating the Sun. This was the fever proving they won't be bullied. They won't be intimidated. and they protect their own. The victory sends them to their first ever Commissioners Cup final for the franchise. But more importantly, it sends a message to the entire league about what happens when you target their players. The Indian of Fever fans were chanting Sophie Sophie. [Applause] Sophie's jersey is going to sell out tonight. She's going to be in the All-Star game tonight just from this one play because she was standing on business. It wasn't a dirty play. It was an intentional foul and it was meant to send a message. It turned into a scuffle and I don't think anybody wanted that. The Fever got their revenge after that brutal May 30th loss. Clark got her justice after getting eye poked and body checked. Sophie Cunningham became a hero for standing up when it mattered most. Sometimes the officials won't protect you, but your teammates always will. That's exactly what happened on June 17th when the Indiana Fever showed the basketball world they're not backing down from anybody. Oh, Clark just took it away. It's a twoon one. Clark bounce pass. Pretty fine. And Mitchell won't miss from there. This game proved that the Indiana Fever aren't just talented. They're a family that fights for each other when things get tough. When the officials won't protect their players, teammates like Sophie Cunningham step up and handle business themselves. That's what real loyalty looks like in professional sports. The Commissioners Cup final awaits on July 1st against the Minnesota Lyns. After watching how this team handles adversity and stands up for each other, 2025 is looking brighter than ever for Fever fans. Remember this moment when people try to tell you that loyalty doesn't matter in professional sports. Sophie Cunningham just proved them wrong. If you support the fever, comment down below CC and Spicy Sophie. Like, subscribe, and turn on all notifications so you never miss out. Click the video on the screen and we will see you in the next