Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts publicly defended forward Alyssa Thomas on Saturday, rejecting allegations that his players took cheap shots at Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark during a game on Wednesday.
The league retroactively assessed a flagrant 2 foul and a mandatory one-game suspension to Thomas for a physical sequence where she grabbed for the ball and fell over Clark.
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This forced the six-time All-Star to miss Saturday's 89-80 victory against the Toronto Tempo.
Tibbetts expressed strong disagreement with Indiana head coach Stephanie White, who had stated after Wednesday's contest that the Mercury took two cheap shots at Clark.
"The people in this league know who AT is. She's a competitor, she's a winner, and she's tough.
The one thing she is not is cheap," said Tibbetts.
The Phoenix coach further criticized the league's disciplinary review process, noting that officials failed to contact key members of the organization before rendering the final verdict.
"To say that we had two cheap shots in that game, to me, is ridiculous. Steph knows AT.
She got the opportunity to coach AT for two years, and she knows what AT stands for and what she's about," stated Tibbetts.
White, who coached Thomas during the 2023 and 2024 seasons with the Connecticut Sun, had insisted on a retroactively applied penalty because game officials did not blow a whistle on the play.
"The fact that it was a no-call … you got to call it," said White.
