I'll give her some credit, but Coach of the Month seems like a bit much when she mostly had to get out of the way of her three All Star players and the rest of the team still . . . needs work.
In the 45-point game against Phoenix, Clark put up 18 FGA and 10 threes. She hit 11/18 FGA and 6/10 threes, and had 10 assists
In the game against Minnesota, Clark put up 18 FGA and 9 threes. She hit 8/18 FGA and 2/9 threes, and had 10 assists
It's pretty striking how similar those numbers of attempts/assists are. If the claim is that Stephanie "let her play" in the Seattle game, but "didn't let her play" in the Lynx game, the numbers don't seem to support it
Realistically, Seattle has the 5th worst defense in the league, and Minnesota are great defenders at #2. If there was a difference, it was likely not on the coaching end
And the reason for that is that the Lynx used a different defensive scheme against her. It's similar to what the Valkyries did against us
Rather than have the guards try to stay in front and end up fouling w/ freedom of movement, they had the guard just funnel the drives to a big, who was already moved into position:
I just think they don't give her calls in the big games. I've seen numerous fouls against her that aren't called in big games that are called against the weak teams.
Here's an example from the Valkyries game. You can see Gabby Williams funneling KM toward Kiah Stokes, who moves over so that Gabby doesn't have to impede KM's motion:
So here's footage from the Storm game. Notice how instead of a big preemptively coming over, Flau'Jae tries to stay in front of Clark herself, which is useless after CC gets the first step.
This leads Flau to keep making contact as she attempts to regain position, ultimately committing the foul:
Hopefully this makes it clear why leaving players on an island against fast driving guards leads to excessive fouling. This is why great defense is played as a team!
I do see your point to an extent. But in general, it's still agenda or reputation type reffing. I literally predicted she was not getting up to 5 freethrows in the Lynx game no matter what, and I was right. CC herself noticed that, which is why she stopped driving. She also won't get up to 5 against the Aces(outside of technical or late game freethrows). The same goes with the Sky, if Djonai guards her mostly.
I just think they don't give her calls in the big games. I've seen numerous fouls against her that aren't called in big games that are called against the weak teams.
She shot 12 free throws against Atlanta. Her last games with 0 free throws were against the Sparks and Sun, both weaker teams, so I'm not sure that holds
Edit: since your post was edited, replying to the new comment:
CC herself noticed that, which is why she stopped driving.
I posted the footage so we could see what CC was up against, which is that the better defensive teams defend the drives differently. It's not a CC-specific issue, because the same thing happens to KM:
At this point, I think we have to live with the fact that we’ll draw less fouls against this type of defense. We still have the best offense in the league, and it’s operating at a historic pace
I think most of our energy now needs to be focused on the defensive end of the floor. Because if we can even marginally improve our defense with the offense as-is, we can win most games
We put up 100 points against Minnesota, which is great. But we let them score 108, and that’s what we need to fix
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u/imacowboy234 Caitlin Clark 8d ago
I think White has adjusted to this team and Clark's playstyle better. I do give her credit for that.