Caitlin Clark shove: Marina Mabrey clears air, admits she 'probably overreacted' in heated moment vs. Fever

Marina Mabrey got honest about her shove of Caitlin Clark in a June 17 matchup between the Connecticut Sun and Indiana Fever. The incident drew national attention after Mabrey and Clark both received technicals for the play but neither player was ejected.

Mabrey’s was initally given a Flagrant 1 foul after she came up from behind Clark and shoulder checked her, but the league later updated it to a Flagrant 2 after the game. In an Aug. 10 interview with Sportskeeda, Mabrey opened about the incident with Clark for the first time since it happened.

“I thought it only got upgraded to a flagrant 2 because the way the fans reacted to it,” Mabrey said of the shove on Clark. “They gave me a tech for it [initially]. I don’t care, honestly. I really don’t. Obviously, I’m not trying to hurt anybody. I’m not trying to go after certain players for certain s***.

“Me and Caitlin were cool. Me and Caitlin have competed against each other in the playoffs. She threw me into the benches in the quarterfinals. We didn’t go after her for it. She’s competitive, and I was about to get the ball. I get it. Throw me out of bounds. We got back up and kept competing.”

The shove came at the end of a sequence in which Clark was inadvertently poked in the eye by Jacy Sheldon. Caitlin Clark shoved Sheldon away, which caused Marina Mabrey to come up behind her and shoulder check her to the floor.

Mabrey admitted that she “probably overreacted a little bit” by shoving Clark, who didn’t even see her coming. However, she also said that she was only looking out for her teammate.

“So at the end of the day, it was a play on the ball when she did it,” Mabrey said. “And I probably overreacted a little bit. But my teammate is getting hit, and I’m not OK with that. It wasn’t like, ‘I hate her! Here I go!’ I don’t do stuff like that. Everybody knows that I’ve never done that before.”

Clark has dealt with injuries throughout her second season, missing 19 games so far. She has not played in the past 10 games for the Fever as she recovers from a right groin injury.

Some fans have blamed the physicality with which Clark is treated by other players as contributing to the injuries. Either way, Mabrey made it known that it is never her intention to hurt another player, but sometimes things get heated in the moment.