Sophie Cunningham has built a reputation for being one of the more entertaining personalities in the WNBA. Her Instagram presence leans into that fully, mixing on-court action shots, pregame fits, and self-made memes into a package that her followers have come to expect.
Her latest carousel had a little bit of everything. But it was the seventh slide that caught the most attention. It showed Sophie Cunningham with her eyes shut, Rae Burrell’s hand making contact with her face, and a foul being whistled on the play.
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Burrell saw it. She went straight to the comments with three words.
“Lolll my bad,” Burrell wrote, adding two emojis.
It was the kind of response that fit the moment exactly. No over-explanation. No formal apology. Just a quick acknowledgment that was lighthearted enough to match the energy of the post itself. The incident drew a foul call during the game, which tells you everything about how it looked live. But in the context of Sophie Cunningham’s Instagram, it became a talking point for an entirely different reason.
The play happened Saturday night, when the Indiana Fever routed the Los Angeles Sparks 111-87. Burrell tried to poke the ball loose while defending Cunningham, and the hand ended up where it was not supposed to go. It was the kind of physical, scrappy defensive play that gets whistled and forgotten during a blowout. Cunningham posting the photo on Sunday gave it a longer life.
Both players handled it well. Burrell was not going to let a viral moment sit without responding, and the tone she chose was the right one.
The game itself was not a close contest. Indiana built a 30-point lead by halftime, holding the Sparks to just 37 first-half points. The Fever shot 56 percent from the field and made life difficult for a Los Angeles team already playing without Kelsey Plum, who has been sidelined with a leg injury.
Kelsey Mitchell led all scorers with 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting, including four made threes in just 26 minutes. Aliyah Boston added 17 on 5-of-6 shooting, and Tyasha Harris supplied 16. Four of Indiana’s five starters finished in double figures. The Fever did all of this without Caitlin Clark, who sat out with a back injury suffered during the loss to Phoenix on Wednesday.
Sophie Cunningham came off the bench and logged nine points, two rebounds and a steal in 20 minutes. It was a quiet but useful night, and it came in the middle of a week where her name had been circulating loudly. Just days earlier, she had spoken out on her podcast about the physical treatment Clark receives every game, saying the league and the refs do nothing to protect her.
Burrell finished with 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting. The Sparks made just 4-of-20 attempts from three-point range as a team and had no answer for Indiana’s balanced attack.
What This Means For Sophie Cunningham And Rae Burrell Going Forward
Indiana improved to 11-8 and now sit seventh in the standings. The Fever have a seven-day break before a four-game road trip begins on July 5, with two of those matchups against the Las Vegas Aces. Getting Caitlin Clark back healthy in time is the obvious priority.
The Sparks dropped to 8-10 and have lost two straight. Their next three games are at home at Crypto.com Arena. Burrell has been the team’s most consistent offensive option in Plum’s absence, averaging 11.9 points this season in what has been the strongest stretch of her career. She will need to keep it going.
The Instagram moment was funny. The standings may not be.
