The first meeting of Angel Reese with her former teammate, Isabelle Harrison, turned into a complete showdown. So much so that the physicality culminated in the latter being ejected after she committed a flagrant 2 foul on the Atlanta Dream forward. While emotions certainly got the best of the two, as Reese was also left in tears, one WNBA analyst still believes it doesn’t warrant anyone to think there’s a beef between the two.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“People automatically said that they have some beef with each other or it’s personal, whatever the case may be,” Alicia Jay said on the ‘We Need To Talk’ podcast. “While we do not know if it’s true or not, I think in women’s sports, people always go to that when it comes to women being competitive with each other.
“And that is not necessarily the case in men’s sports. I want to get away from that, if we can, because women are competitors. While Izzy let this get the best of her, and she should not have done what she did, let’s be clear— sometimes it comes out like that. Sometimes the competitiveness gets the best of you, and you don’t do the greatest of things.”
Harrison was the lone bright spot for the Tempo, recording a team-high 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting from the field with 3 rebounds and 2 blocks in just 19 minutes of play. However, she was too physical when defending Reese from the get-go. The two were also chipping at each other until things turned ugly just four minutes into the second half.
With 6:07 on the clock in the third quarter and Atlanta leading 52-42, Dream’s Rhyne Howard passed the ball to Reese inside the paint. While the forward was trying to get to the rim, pushing Harrison back, the latter wrapped her hands around the forward’s neck and pulled her down to the floor. Harrison received a flagrant-2 foul for that play and was ejected from the game.
The game was indeed physical, and more often than not, we have seen that when such a level begins from the first buzzer, things definitely get intense later. It was the same case in the 2025 matchup between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun when Jacy Sheldon committed the flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark. The referees are expected to warn the players early on in such cases. However, in Reese’s case, too, that didn’t happen.
It has been consistent with Angel Reese. Her well-televised and propagated beef with Caitlin Clark has been interpreted as a personal one where both athletes hate each other. So much so that both Reese and Clark have had to repeatedly clarify that it is not.
“I don’t think people realize it’s not personal,” Reese has said.
At the end of the day, it is the competitiveness and the hunger to win that take precedence when between the lines. In the case of Harrison, however, the controversy goes deeper.
The two were teammates at the Chicago Sky in 2024. The locker room was reportedly frustrated with first-year head coach Teresa Weatherspoon for giving “preferential treatment” to some players.
“From top to bottom, it’s just a breath of fresh air to have somebody to have your back,” Reese said of the new roster in 2025, suggesting some friction among the 2024 squad featuring Harrison.
In addition, Harrison’s partner, Natasha Cloud, dropped a few posts on Threads that suggested some personal feud.
“Y’all don’t get to talk out your neck and then be hurt when we actually respond,” Cloud wrote. “I like that edge, IH.”
Reese has been in plenty of scuffles in the WNBA over the past two years. So, the talk around a personal beef did not come out of nowhere. But would someone think along the same lines if, say, Draymond Green — one of the most physical players in the NBA — were playing the same way? We already know the answer to that. It’s not beef, it’s competitiveness.
These two were physical throughout the game. Harrison even hit Reese with the ‘too small’ celebration. Reese was also spotted elbowing Harrison. However, if the referees had intervened, it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. However, it is probably not the beef but the passion for the game.
