Caitlin Clark, DiJonai Carrington React To Incident In CT Sun Win

Caitlin Clark’s WNBA playoff debut didn’t go as the Indiana Fever planned, but one incident involving a Connecticut Sun star was what fans online focused on.

DiJonai Carrington was tasked with guarding Clark as she did in the previous matchups against the Fever. One Carrington attempt at a steal failed, and she accidentally hit the Fever superstar in the eye. Clark finished the game and only scored 11 points as Connecticut won Game 1 of the best-of-three first-round series.

Any physical incident involving Clark tends to blow up on social media with novice WNBA and Clark fans believing the 22-year-old is being targeted due to alleged jealousy over her popularity. And like she’s done in the past, the Fever guard calmed those conspiracies.

“It wasn’t intentional by any means. You just watched the play, it wasn’t intentional,” Clark told reporters, per Matthew Byrne of Clutch Points.

Clark laughed off the question since these incidents tend to happen from time to time in the men’s and women’s games. Carrington was in line with her eye poke toward Clark being accidental.

“I don’t even know why I would intend to hit anybody in the eye,” Carrington told reporters, per Christine Brennan. “That doesn’t even make sense to me. But no, I didn’t. I didn’t know I hit her actually. I was trying to make a play on the ball, and I guess I followed through and I hit her, so obviously it’s never intentional, that’s not even like the type of player that I am.”

Things took a strange turn in Carrigton’s availability when Brennan asked the Sun guard if she laughed about the accidental eye poke with Marina Mabrey. The reporter didn’t seem to understand the Connecticut duo’s 3-point celebration that was inspired by Carmelo Anthony, but it seemed like Clark and Carrington were ready to brush things aside and move on to Game 2.

Connecticut will move on to the next round of the WNBA playoffs with a win over Indiana at Mohegan Sun Arena on Wednesday.