WNBA Week 10: Diana Taurasi Scores 10K, Everyone Else Brawls

Welcome back to Natalie and Heather breaking down the week in the W! As always, we would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Heather: Natalie, hello! Thank you for joining me for our weekly WNBA chat, even though I know your heart must be heavy from the USWNT loss this weekend.

Natalie: It really is. I didn’t think it would be…I’d watched enough of the USWNT’s performance to see the end coming. There wasn’t much reason to have faith in Vlatko to turn things around. BUT! Then they came out in a different formation with a different lineup (necessitated by the absence of Rose Lavelle) and the hope starts to creep in. And then they played as well as they had all tournament — even better than the Vietnam win — and the hope starts to creep in just a little more.

Heather: It’s also hard to keep your hope-heart in check when you haven’t been able to sleep because the games are all happening on a different planet!

Natalie: The whole match gave me hope…which only made the penalties that much more crushing. The most painful loss I’ve ever witnessed. It was hard to watch the WNBA afterwards because I was like, “sports?! why should I do that to myself!”

Heather: “I’ll just punch my own self in the face and get it over with!”

Natalie: Right! Which, turns out, is an apt turn of phrase for the WNBA this weekend, where things got very spicy.

Heather: Yeah, there was certainly no comfort to be found in the W this weekend, which was maybe the most brutal weekend the sport has ever experienced? Starting with Shey Peddy getting carted off on a stretcher Friday night then carried on to A’ja Wilson needing to get checked for a concussion after Jonquel Jones elbowed her in the neck on Sunday, and a near bench-clearing brawl between Dallas and Chicago, AND THEN Layshia Clarendon and Brittney Sykes getting ejected in the Sparks-Mystics game after Sykes grabbed Clarendon when they were going up for a layup and then Clarendon straight up rugby tackling Sykes to the ground. Honestly, the perfect way to honor Diana Taurasi!

Natalie: Really, no better tribute to Diana Taurasi than what happened this weekend. LOL.

In all seriousness, I’m grateful that none of the players were seriously injured this weekend because — and we talked about this last week — the refs continue to be abysmal at their jobs. Allowing that level of physicality to continue is going to get someone hurt. And when you don’t get calls that absolutely should’ve been made, players are going to get pissed about it…and rightfully so…which only leads to more chippy-ness like we saw this weekend.

Heather: That’s absolutely right, and I was thinking about our conversation about how the W needs to step up and protect their players the entire weekend. I did miss an injury in my list up there. I forgot that Sophie Cunningham got poked in the face/eyeball by an actual goat, which Phoenix had on hand during Taurasi’s…