Paige Bueckers Outraged After Getting Technical Foul For Clapping

Paige Bueckers had a rough night at the office on Friday.

Bueckers and the Dallas Wings visited the Atlanta Dream at Gateway Center in College Park, Georgia. The Dream won, 86-69, as Wings All-Stars Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale combined for nine points on 4-of-24 shooting from the floor.

Bueckers’ seven points and 23.1% field goal shooting are career lows for the 2025 No. 1 overall pick.

The game still hung in the balance with under two minutes to play in the third quarter. The Wings trailed the Dream by three. Bueckers drove toward the hoop when the whistle blew.

She started clapping aggressively, likely thinking a foul was called on Atlanta, and was astonished to learn she’d received a technical foul.

An animated Bueckers pleaded her case, saying, “Are you serious? I clapped, just like that.”

Bueckers was not made available to the media after the loss, so her immediate reaction on the floor will likely be the last we hear about it from her. First-year head coach Jose Fernandez was asked about it at his postgame presser, but he declined to go into detail.

“I’m not gonna comment on that because I don’t wanna get fined,” Fernandez said.

The Wings (3-3) have had an up-and-down opening two weeks of the 2026 season, which is to be expected when adapting to a first-year head coach’s scheme and jelling on the fly with players, like Ogunbowale, who joined the team late due to overseas commitments. It won’t get any easier over the next two games, either.

The Wings will travel to Brooklyn to face the New York Liberty (3-2) on Sunday afternoon before returning home to host the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces Thursday, May 28.

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This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 7:58 PM.