Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones slammed Las Vegas Aces' Kelsey Plum after the new WNBA champion suggested the New York Liberty lack cohesion as a team.
The comments came after Game 4 of the WNBA's Finals as the Aces won by just one point in a 70-69 result that allowed them to clinch the prize.
It's the second consecutive championship for the team, who won the 2022 affair by defeating the Connecticut Sun also in four games.
"I think we knew we hadn't played our best basketball," Plum said. "We also knew that, as much as they're a team, they're not a team, if that makes sense. They're really good individual players, but they don't care about each other.
"You can tell in those moments. They revert back to individual basketball."
Rough night! WNBA Player Sabrina Ionescu Vomits On Live TV
The result led to her being slammed by the Liberty players, who declared her comments to be untrue and in bad taste on the following Friday morning at the Barclays Center.
"That couldn't be further from the truth," Ionescu said. "I believe that I've never been on a team that's been more committed to one another than what has been like this year.
"We had players from all over come together in such a short amount of time and commit to one another -- commit to role changes -- to try to win," the Romanian-American added. "And for a team as new as we were with so many different role changes to come in and be in the Finals is unheard of."
The previous games had been 99-82 for the Aces, 104-76 and 73-87 as the Nevada outfit controlled how the Finals played out, prompting Plum to make her swipe at the runners-up in both the regular season and the postseason.
"She's not in our locker room," Jones added. "She doesn't know what goes on in our locker room. I think it's easy to kick people when they're down and you're up and, honestly and truly, to me, it felt kind of classless.
"You won a championship. You get to celebrate. You get to talk about things that your team did to be successful. But you choose to, essentially, s**t on somebody else."
Plum apologises on social media
Plum, following criticism of her comments, took to social media to claim they have been taken out of context and issued her apology to the players and team and looks to move on.
"Since the media wants to do click bait, I'm going to cut this drama out right now so we can move on and be in peace," she wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter. "What I said was taken extremely out of context.
"I was trying to articulate my teammates and I have been through a lot and we used our bond to get over the hump and getting through it doesn't happen overnight.
"Never been the type to throw shade, quite the opposite actually. I see how it came off, never was my intention and I apologize. Our game grew immensely from this series, don't let this bull s**t detract from the biggest win here."
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rq3RnJhnm5%2BifKa6jpuYrKOVqa%2BiuMtopZuZX2d9c3%2BOamdoamFkg3Z%2Fkp9qbmtia4Wmf8SemW5taJeBdoOWZ5%2BtpZw%3D