Christie Sides defended her decision to bench Caitlin Clark in the third quarter of the Indiana Fever’s 72-89 loss to the Connecticut Sun Monday night.

‘We were down 28 and I wanted to put a group in there that would get out and play some defense,’ she told reporters when asked why she pulled her starters from the floor midway through the third quarter.

‘I’m really proud of that group that went out there … they played hard,’ she added.

Sides also publicly blasted her team over a perceived lack of effort throughout the game at Mohegan Sun Arena.

‘I’m gonna start with how you can’t, at this level, coach effort,’ Sides explained.

Christie Sides defended her decision to bench Caitlin Clark amid the Fever's 72-89 loss

Sides pulled her starters from the floor midway through the third quarter of the game

‘I felt like we were just trying to ask them to keep playing hard, play hard. You can’t start there. You can’t play in this league if you have to coach effort. It’s just too hard.’

Clark finished with her fourth-fewest points of the season, going three of eight from the field for 10 points – all in the first half. She picked up her fourth foul with 4:41 left in the third quarter and did not play in the final period.

After the blowout loss, Clark admitted she thought they ‘could have played with a lot better energy.’

‘This is a team you can’t come out and be lackadaisical against, they’re just that good,” said No. 1 Draft pick told reporters.

‘They’re going to punch you in the mouth, and I don’t think we had it from the jump and obviously that’s a little disappointing,’ she went on.

‘I thought we let little things on the offensive end frustrate us and we didn’t play good defense … it’s not a recipe to win many games.’

'You can't play in this league if you have to coach effort,' the head coach told reporters

Meanwhile, Clark admitted she thought the Fever 'could have played with a lot better energy'

However, fans on social media took issue with Sides’ coaching, and the fact she publicly slammed her team in the post-game press conference.

‘You can’t coach effort, but you can inspire it,’ one fan wrote on X.

Another chimed in, ‘Sides takes zero accountability,’ while someone else echoed the sentiment, ‘I wouldn’t be excited to play for her or on this team either.’

A fourth fan wrote, ‘Her team is unmotivated and with low confidence, she lost the locker room.’

Sides also came under fire for revealing a private text exchange between her and Clark after the superstar rookie was snubbed from the USA’s women’s basketball team heading to Paris this summer.

‘She got the call on the bus, and she texted me to let me know,’ Sides told reporters.

‘I just tried to keep her spirits [up]. The thing she said was: “Coach, they woke a monster,” which I thought was awesome.’