Over the weekend, Chicago Sky star DiJonai Carrington was ejected from a game against the Indiana Fever after a hard foul on Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was ruled a Flagrant 2. Now, Carrington has broken her silence on the foul, claiming it wasn’t intentional, despite Cunningham’s claims.
While Cunningham expressed her belief that Carrington intentionally struck her in the face, sending her crashing to the hardwood, Carrington claims that she was just making a basketball play and made incidental contact with Cunningham.
Cunningham believed it was intentional
The play in question occurred during the first quarter of Saturday night’s game. Cunningham went up for what appeared to be an open layup, but Carrington came from behind and struck her in the face, sending her crashing to the floor and drawing blood.
“Clearly, I think it was like, unnecessary. I’ve never really spoken to her and have no beef with her, but I guess she has some pent-up stuff. So get your [expletive] off. That’s fine. I can take it.” Cunningham said after the game via Kareem Copeland.
Cunningham said that she believed the hard foul was intentional.
“Yeah, it’s intentional. She wasn’t even on the team. She has no reason to be doing any of that. So, good way to get her kicked out,” she said. “I don’t even know her. She wasn’t even on the team last year when all that was going on. But I do think when people play the Fever, we’re nationally televised, there’s a lot of eyes on us, and people just want attention. And that’s her just trying to get attention.”
Carrington breaks her silence
While Cunningham might believe that the foul was intentional, Carrington claims it was not, claiming it was “never intentional” and was just an “unfortunate” play.
“I’m never gonna let an open layup just be had,” Carrington said on Monday night. “You can pull clips from however many seasons of me making that same exact play. It was unfortunate that I made contact with her in the way that I did, but it was never intentional.”
Carrington returned to the court on Monday night during the team’s game against the Seattle Storm, where she led the Sky with 26 points in the 97-88 loss.
About Dave Kelsey
Contributing author to The Comeback.