{"id":675461,"date":"2026-05-31T05:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675461\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T05:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:40:19","slug":"fevers-sophie-cunningham-trash-talk-to-fires-emily-engstler-is-apparently-unspeakable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675461\/","title":{"rendered":"Fever’s Sophie Cunningham trash talk to Fire’s Emily Engstler is apparently unspeakable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Cunningham and Emily Engstler got into it on the court on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Cunningham earned a technical foul for a push of Engstler, and the Portland Fire forward got a tech of her own for taunting back to the Indiana Fever wing.<\/p>\n

In the end, it was two intense players standing their ground.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Engstler didn’t mince words.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think you want to know what was said,” Engstler began<\/a> to reporters.<\/p>\n

“Putting it in words, I can say… No one scares me,” Engstler continued, “and she sure doesn’t.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd share a viral video moment<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Engstler then explained exactly why she was upset.<\/p>\n

“It’s basketball at the end of the day, but I won’t let anybody talk to me a certain way,” she said. “Or hit me.”<\/p>\n

Engstler and the expansion Fire got the last laugh.<\/p>\n

She went for a remarkable 16 points (7-10 FG, 2-3 3FG), 10 rebounds and 4 assists. It’s one of the best games of her WNBA career.<\/p>\n

The Fever, meanwhile, got just six points from Caitlin Clark in a 16-point loss.<\/p>\n

Cunningham actually did her part with 15 points off the bench, but that was one of the only bright spots.<\/p>\n

Engstler and the Fire had just lost the night before to Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream, but this was a massive bounceback.<\/p>\n

Expansion teams often feature talented players who haven’t quite gotten the right opportunity yet. When it comes together well, it can work nicely.<\/p>\n

Right now, that’s exactly what’s happening for Engstler and the rest of the Fire.<\/p>\n

More WNBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham and Emily Engstler got into it on the court on Saturday night. Cunningham earned a technical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-675461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}