INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Fever clinched a spot in the Commissioner's Cup championship game with an 88-71 win over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday, but the feat was overshadowed by a pair of scuffles, including a fight in the final minute that led to the ejections of three players.
With 46.1 seconds remaining, the Fever's Sophie Cunningham committed a hard foul on the Sun's Jacy Sheldon as she attempted a breakaway layup, with an altercation ensuing between the players and eventually enveloping teammates, coaches and security as they tried to quell the tensions.
Cunningham was hit with a flagrant foul 2 and an immediate ejection. Sheldon and teammate Lindsay Allen were deemed "escalators" in the incident, according to official Ashley Gloss in the postgame pool report, and both were ejected for fighting.
The commotion was the culmination of chippiness, physical play and heightened tensions that had been building throughout the game.
A skirmish in the third quarter resulted in Caitlin Clark, Marina Mabrey and Tina Charles earning technical fouls and Sheldon a flagrant 1. It started with Sheldon poking Clark in the eye while defending her then Clark pushing Sheldon away. Mabrey then forcefully bumped Clark, knocking Clark to the floor. Gloss said the contact made by Mabrey did not rise to the level of ejection or meet the criteria for a flagrant 2.
Both teams said missed calls and poor management from the officials led to things going awry by game's end.
Fever coach Stephanie White went as far to say "bad officiating" is a WNBA-wide issue and that "everybody [in the league] is getting better, except the officials."
"I started talking to the officials in the first quarter, and we knew this was going to happen," White said. "You could tell it was going to happen. So, they've got to get control of it. They've got to be better."
Connecticut center Olivia Nelson-Ododa offered her impressions.
"Obviously, there was a physical game tonight. I think when things aren't managed well to begin with that it tends to get out of hand," she said. "I feel like a lot of stuff was escalating throughout the game, and that's what happens when you don't make the proper calls or officiate the game and manage it the right way."
Asked what she thought was the intention of Cunningham's last-minute foul, White simply said, "It was a flagrant foul." Sun coach Rachid Meziane called the move "disrespectful."
"When you are winning a game by 17 points, and you doing this ... for me, [it's] a stupid foul," Meziane said.
Clark avoided addressing any specifics of the incidents, quipping in the postgame news conference, "You guys came for basketball; let's talk about basketball."
There were indeed big basketball implications with the Fever's win, as it helped secure their berth in the Commissioner's Cup final, where they will represent the Eastern Conference and face the West's Minnesota Lynx. Indiana (6-5) needed to beat Connecticut (2-9) on Tuesday and for the Atlanta Dream to lose to the New York Liberty in a concurrent contest, which the Fever bench was tracking live during their game.
The champion of the in-season tournament, which is in its fifth year, will be crowned July 1, with the Lynx hosting the Fever.
"Obviously, we're excited. It's a big deal," Clark said. "It's a hard thing to do, and why wouldn't we celebrate that? We're getting to play for a pool of money -- that's pretty fun -- and you're competing to win a trophy. It's an extra game for us to get better, as well."
The Fever were pleased with how they didn't let their foot off the gas in the second half Tuesday, expanding an eight-point lead at the break to as many as 21 points late in the contest.
Indiana is back over .500 for the first time since it was 2-1 and has won two consecutive games since Clark returned from a five-game absence with a left quad strain.
Clark paced Indiana with 20 points and six assists on the evening, while Charles led the Sun with 20 of her own.