What’s it take for a losing team’s best player to actually deserve the blame? On Thursday, Chelsea Gray became the first player in WNBA history to hit a game-tying buzzer-beater in regulation and a game-winning buzzer-beater in overtime in the same game, and Skip Bayless still made it about Caitlin Clark.
Bayless named her in the first line of his own recap. He posted this on X:
https://twitter.com/RealSkipBayless/status/2085540675312058844
Every fact in that tweet argues against its own conclusion. He credits Chelsea Gray’s buzzer-beaters for erasing a 20-point deficit, spells out that Vegas was down 20, and still opens with “This awful home loss is on Caitlin.”
It reads like a headline that needed a name before it needed a reason.
The Indiana Fever blew a 20-point lead to get here. They led 42-22 in the first half before the Las Vegas Aces ripped off a 15-0 run to close it. Jackie Young scored a franchise-record 15 straight points in that stretch and finished with 22. A’ja Wilson was still hounding Clark on the final possession of overtime, which is how the turnover happened in the first place.
Clark missed both free throws with seven seconds left in regulation, up 75-72, and Gray answered with a 26-foot three at the buzzer to force overtime. With seven seconds left in overtime and Indiana up 84-83, Clark turned it over under Wilson’s pressure, and Gray hit the winner off a Jackie Young pass to close it out, 86-84.
Twice, on the two biggest possessions of the night, the ball found Gray’s hands from 26 feet and went in.
Look at the rest of her box score and it barely looks like a starring role: 11 points, two rebounds, seven assists, four steals, three of five from three. Most of that stat line is forgettable. The two shots that weren’t are the only two anyone will remember from this game in five years.
Bayless has spent most of this season as a vocal Clark supporter — he’s the same analyst who already called Clark a problem for the rest of the league. Thursday’s tweet reads like whiplash from the same guy.
It also isn’t the first time Indiana has looked shaky with a game on the line. The Fever’s late-game dysfunction has been a running theme all year, and Thursday’s collapse fits the file neatly. Bayless just needed a face for it, and Clark was standing closest.
I spent two years pricing my own freelance work at fifty bucks a piece, so I know exactly how incentives like this work. “Chelsea Gray authored the best closing sequence in WNBA history” is a good story. “Caitlin Clark blew it” is a better headline. That gap is the business model.
Clark didn’t reach for anyone else’s excuse. She told reporters afterward that missing those free throws, which would have pushed Indiana’s lead to two possessions, “kind of cost my team there for sure.” Bayless turned two plays into a verdict on her whole game.
Gray made history twice in one night — Bayless still needed a villain.
