Angel Reese’s furious response to Caitlin Clark after the Indiana Fever star sent her crashing to the ground has been revealed by a lip-reader.
Chicago Sky star Reese had to be restrained after Clark knocked her down and caused her to spill the ball moments after she grabbed an offensive rebound near the end of the third quarter.
As tempers hit boiling point, Clark turned her back and walked away as players from both teams got between the two to stop things spilling over.
It was then, according to expert lip-reader NJ Hickling, that Reese first yelled: ‘You f***ing grab! Grabbing like that.’
Reese then walked to the side of the court where a Chicago Sky official stepped in front of her to try and get her to cool her temper.
‘You’re crazy as f***,’ Reese then shouted in Clark’s direction, waving her finger before eventually stepping back.
Angel Reese was livid after a clash with Caitlin Clark as Chicago Sky lost to Indiana Fever
Reese had to be held back after the incident while Clark walked away from the drama
After the game, Reese was in no mood to talk about the incident – in part because her team were emphatically beaten by the Fever, losing 58-93.
‘Basketball play, refs got it right, move on,’ Reese, who top-scored for her team with 12 points, said in a post-game press conference.
Clark, meanwhile, said there was no underlying tension between her and Reese but added that she disagree with the refs who upgraded her foul to a flagrant foul.
‘Let’s not make it something that it’s not,’ Clark said. ‘It was just a good play on the basketball.
‘I’m not sure what the ref saw to upgrade it, and that’s up to their discretion. It’s a take foul to put them at the free-throw line.
‘I’ve watched a lot of basketball in my life, that’s exactly what it was. I wasn’t trying to do anything malicious. That’s not the type of player I am.’
But inevitably, the incident will go down as another chapter in the fierce rivalry between the two.
It dates to their college days, when Reese helped lead LSU to a 102-85 victory over Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes for the 2022-23 national championship. Reese appeared to taunt Clark by waving her hand in front of her face and pointing to her ring finger, indicating that she was about to celebrate a championship title at Clark’s expense.
But the incident is the latest instalment in a long list of clashes between the two players
Clark won the rematch in the spring of 2024, however, a game that drew 12.3 million television viewers.
Less than eight weeks later, they were squaring off in the WNBA in the first of four matchups.
The Fever took three of those contests, many featuring hard fouls. In the end Clark helped Indiana make the playoffs and the Sky came up short as Reese missed the final two weeks of games with a season-ending wrist injury.
In one game, Clark was shoved to the floor with a bodycheck from behind by Reese’s then-teammate, Chennedy Carter.
Carter appeared to yell ‘yo b****’ at Clark before knocking her over, a move that saw Reese leap off the bench and applaud.
Then, later that season, Reese appeared to accidentally hit Clark in the head in an attempt to swipe the ball away from her as she drove to the basket.
Reese made contact with Clark’s head as she tried to hit the ball in a WNBA game last season
Clark completely dismissed any suggestion that there was malice behind Reese’s move, saying after the game: ‘It’s just part of basketball.
‘It is what it is. She was trying to make a play on the ball and get the block. It happens.’
Reese and Clark next face off on June 7 when the two teams meet in Chicago.
