{"id":377091,"date":"2026-06-27T09:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T09:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/377091\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T09:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T09:27:14","slug":"alyssa-thomas-flagrant-on-caitlin-clark-blown-out-of-proportion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/377091\/","title":{"rendered":"Alyssa Thomas’ flagrant on Caitlin Clark ‘blown out of proportion’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The WNBA announced Thursday that Alyssa Thomas<\/a> has been suspended for one game after reviewing the now-viral moment that involved the Phoenix Mercury forward\u2019s fist making contact with Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark\u2019s throat after landing on her during a recent game. <\/p>\n

The league\u2019s action came the day after the Mercury\u2019s 111-109 victory against the Fever on Wednesday. The game followed the teams\u2019 chippy Monday matchup, which saw Thomas and Clark receive technical fouls<\/a> along with three other players for their involvement in a scuffle during the final frame of the Fever\u2019s 86-77 win.<\/p>\n

Former WNBA player-turned-studio analyst Cynthia Cooper said the situation could have been different if the foul had just been assessed during the game in which it occurred. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think if the play had been reviewed and the decision was made there that it was a flagrant 2<\/a>, I think this all would have been handled differently,\u201d the Hall of Famer said during Prime\u2019s WNBA postgame show on Thursday. \u201cThis is probably blown out of proportion a little bit, just because maybe the officials missed it in the game. Then, when they had the replay, they could have fixed it. They could have righted the wrong, and they didn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thomas and Clark got tangled up at around the 6:52 mark during the second quarter of the Wednesday game. Clark, who had Mercury guard Lexi Held defending her, fell to the floor and lost control of the ball. As players scrambled for the ball, Thomas landed on Clark, pressed her fist into Clark\u2019s throat as she got up and stepped over her as play continued. No fouls were called at that time, and screenshots and video from the incident quickly made their rounds on social media. <\/p>\n

Following the game, Fever head coach Stephanie White called the incident a \u201ccheap shot\u201d and said the lack of a foul call was \u201cabsolutely unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent all offseason looking at officiating<\/a>,\u201d White said<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cThe one thing we keep asking for is consistency. [Clark] is not called the same way everybody else is called.\u201d <\/p>\n

In its Thursday statement<\/a> following a review of the game, the WNBA said that it determined that Thomas \u201crecklessly [made] contact with her fist to the throat area of Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark\u201d in what it described as a \u201cnon-basketball act.\u201d The six-time All Star will serve her first-ever suspension during the Mercury\u2019s game against the Toronto Tempo on Saturday. Flagrant 2 fouls also carry a $1,000 fine. <\/p>\n

In Prime\u2019s postgame discussion Thursday with Cooper and Hall of Famer Swin Cash, former WNBA player and coach Ty Young said she did not believe Thomas\u2019 foul was intentional, especially watching in real-time. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I saw, I don\u2019t feel like it was intentional,\u201d Young said. \u201cPlaying against AT, guarding AT, and knowing … AT as a player \u2014 she\u2019s a physical player. And if she wants to do something, [you can tell] it\u2019s intentional. That wasn\u2019t intentional. She wasn\u2019t looking, she\u2019s trying to get up. But when you freeze something … it looks worse than what it actually is.\u201d <\/p>\n

The WNBA is known for its physicality. While Cash acknowledged the importance of the league and teams protecting their players, she also noted that star players have always had to figure out a way to play through it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a physical game,\u201d Cash said. \u201cSuperstars \u2014 whether you\u2019re A\u2019ja Wilson<\/a>, whether you\u2019re Napheesa Collier<\/a>, all the different superstars \u2014 they have gone through these processes of people being physical with them. And they still elevate to that next level. So I think we keep that in mind [with] this unfortunate situation. We\u2019ll see what happens after this.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA announced Thursday that Alyssa Thomas has been suspended for one game after reviewing the now-viral moment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[152663,131482,84588,152665,51743,423,4456,48,52,51,47,50,49,49223,77652,76919,152666,35386,2429,316,152664],"class_list":["post-377091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-fist","tag-flagrant","tag-foul","tag-game","tag-incident","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mercury","tag-other-player","tag-prime","tag-proportion","tag-throat","tag-thursday","tag-wednesday","tag-wnba-legend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}