New Delhi, June 28 -- INDIANAPOLIS - Caitlin Clark walked off the court in the third quarter of a game her team would lose by two points. The foul that put her there had not been called in real time.

That sequence - the hit, the silence from officials, the back that kept Clark moving carefully through the rest of the game - is the axis around which everything since has turned.

On June 24, with 6:52 left in the second quarter, Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas drove a closed fist into Clark's throat during a loose-ball scramble at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. No flag. Play continued. The Indiana Fever fell 111-109 on a night that included a second rough incident: Mercury defender Valeriane Ayayi undercut Clark on a three-point attempt, dra...