For higher or worse, Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark will at all times be tied collectively after their high-profile showdowns on the school stage and their concurrently prolific rookie seasons. Whereas Clark has largely outshone Reese up so far, successful the league’s Rookie of the 12 months award in 2024 and rising because the WNBA’s high star, it was Reese who had the higher efficiency this week.
Heading into the primary video games of the weekend, Clark and Reese every took half in high-profile video games as Clark and the Indiana Fever headed out west for a rematch with the Golden State Valkyries, whereas Reese and the Atlanta Dream regarded to bounce again from a loss this week with a showdown in opposition to the Portland Fireplace.
The outcomes of these video games had been fairly completely different.
Clark Struggles Towards Golden State
Final week, Clark was in a position to lead the Fever to victory over the Valkyries because of her sizzling capturing. Nonetheless, that was actually not the case in Thursday night time’s rematch because the Fever fell 90-88 as Clark struggled mightily.
Not like final week’s recreation, the place Clark’s sizzling capturing led the workforce to an eight-point win, Clark struggled in what was the worst recreation of her season to this point.
Clark completed with simply 16 factors, the bottom whole of the season to this point, whereas making simply 25% of her pictures from the sphere. However it wasn’t simply poor capturing; Clark additionally had 5 turnovers, with two of them coming within the last two minutes of the one-score recreation.
After the sport, Clark didn’t even handle the media as she was not made obtainable for interviews – a doable violation of the WNBA’s media coverage.
Reese Dominates Towards Portland
Whereas Clark had her worst efficiency of the season in a loss, Reese had one of the best efficiency of her season in a win.
In Friday night time’s 86-66 win over the Portland Fireplace, Reese posted a season-high 18 factors, making 6 of 14 pictures from the sphere. She additionally had 12 rebounds – the second-most of the season – in addition to 5 assists, which ties a season excessive.
It was a bounce-back efficiency for Reese after the Dream suffered a blowout loss to the Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday in a recreation the place Reese had simply 10 factors on a 3-for-8 capturing efficiency.
Whereas Clark has typically had the extra profitable profession out of the 2 of them, Reese had the stronger efficiency heading into the weekend.
