Is it a ‘bully-ball’ problem or just ‘Jordan Rules'? WNBA gets physical

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club

But in the case of the WNBA, it needs to be talked about. The league has an issue with physical play escalating into something more violent after the whistle

And superstar Caitlin Clark seems to be at the center of a lot of the extracurriculars

The latest incident went down during Tuesday's Sun vs. Fever game. Clark was raked across the face by a defender

and in the ensuing scuffle, she was knocked to the floor by Sun Center Marina Mabry

Later in the game, Fever guard Sophie Cunningham committed a hard foul on a breakaway by Sun guard J.C. Sheldon

Cunningham was ejected. The pushing and shoving also led to the ejections of Sheldon and her teammate Lindsey Allen

Players and coaches could feel the trouble brewing, and they blamed the officials

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 going to compete And they going to have their teammates backs The late dust is the culmination of chippiness physical play and heightened tensions that seem to be happening around the league

That particular game featured six technicals and two flagrant fouls, which included fines for the players

Fever head coach Stephanie White did not hold back when asked if it was just about Kaitlin Clark

Well, I've seen quite a few dust-ups in the league so far, so I think it's a league-wide issue. I mean, bad officiating is bad officiating

Clark however was at the center of a confrontation in the season opener with her rival Angel Reese

the hard foul that Reese called a basketball play made big headlines the saying goes any publicity

is good publicity but coaches like Becky Hammond of the Las Vegas Aces believe it's gone too far

I think it's something that people really have to start looking at because people are dropping like

flies with concussions and it's not just our team but you know the other night Asia gets hit but also

Chelsea got hit in the face. Jewel's been hit in the face. Jewel has a broken nose. Like there's multiple things going on

The fact that coaches aren being fined for criticizing officials may suggest the league knows they have an issue White certainly made her opinion clear The game has changed so much

Players are faster, they're better, they're bigger, they're stronger. You know, they're as good as they've ever been, they're as athletic as they've ever been

The game is fast now. Things are happening quickly. Everybody's getting better, except the officials

According to the database across the timeline, there have been 44 technical fouls called

in a little over a quarter of the way through the season. Last year, there were a record 166 technicals called, up from 140 in 2023

The league has also increased the number of games played over the last five years

Some have suggested it's just part of the growth of the women's game

much like the NBA in the 1990s when the Detroit Pistons created the Jordan Rules

The focus was to be overly physical on defense, double and triple teaming Michael Jordan in an effort to slow him down and take the ball out of his hands

Check out this vintage interview with MJ describing how the New York Knicks copied that Detroit Pistons playbook Well what was happening was because of the Detroit Pistons and the way they won

a lot of teams were trying to use that brutal type of play, the physical play. And the Knicks

is one of those teams where they built on intimidation, players who tried to physically

demean you or make you scared of them. For her part, Caitlin Clark wants nothing to do with the

narrative that she's a target. She has, for the most part, sidestepped questions about the physical

play, leading it to the coaches to sound off. I'm here to play basketball, and that's what it is

and my game's going to talk, and that's all that really matters, and I love this game

and I'm going to give it everything I have, so I think that's what competitors do. You just step

right back up to the challenge. Has the physicality been effective in slowing Clark down? Not much

In six games this season, she's averaging 21 points, five and a half rebounds, and almost nine

assists a game and shooting 40% from three-point land. She'll be on the court Thursday night in

front of a packed house in San Francisco against the Golden State Valkyries. For Straight Arrow

News, I'm Chris Francis