NEED TO KNOW
The Indiana Fever’s playoff win over the Atlanta Dream should have been remembered for basketball. Instead, it became famous for a cop telling Sophie Cunningham to leave the court as if she were sneaking into the student section without a ticket stub.
Midway through the game, officials reviewed a flagrant foul after Odyssey Sims hit the floor hard. While players checked on their injured teammate, Cunningham walked toward center court. That is when a uniformed police officer stepped in, pointed, and told her to back away. Cunningham, standing with her hand on her hip, refused to budge for several seconds. The surreal moment left fans wondering if the league had accidentally become an experimental theater project.
A Timeout Turns Into a Police Stop
Social media lit up instantly. “Why is a cop telling any player to step off their own court?” one fan asked. Another wrote, “Imagine Steph Curry gets waved off by security during the playoffs. It’s like the WNBA is trolling us on purpose.” Even casual viewers agreed the sight of a player arguing with an officer during a timeout review looked more like an episode of Cops than the WNBA semifinals.
Part of the confusion came from the fact that Cunningham was in street clothes, wearing a brace on her leg. To the officer, she may have looked like a random fan trying to check on Sims. To everyone else, it looked like the league had turned policing into its new sixth man.
The WNBA’s New Reputation
While the Fever advanced, commentators could not get over the absurdity. One analyst joked that the officer must have mistaken the bench for a restricted zone. Another said, “At this point, I’m convinced the WNBA is a sociology class. The syllabus is chaos.”
The scene added to a growing trend of the league being viewed less as a sports competition and more as a long-running prank on fans. Still, Cunningham got the last word. After several tense seconds, she stepped aside with the poise of someone used to being double-teamed—just not usually by law enforcement.
It’s the first time I’ve seen a box-and-one defense run by a cop
Grant Paulsen, accidental WNBA analyst
