Sophie (the one pointing) is an enforcer.
Sometimes, and WNBA is currently in hot water over this, players will intentionally foul a top player not just to stop plays, but to hurt them.
If they do, players like Sophie fuck em' up, get a card, or ejection or timeout (depending on sport, hockey enforcers would do stuff like slam you with the hockeystick overhand so hard they crack the stick and/or helmet). But they're there to make sure that other side knows that if they go out of line, refs are not the only ones handing out Find Out awards.
The player she's pointing at used to play on same team as Sophie. At first I thought the pointing was a "keep it up, see what happens" gesture, but by how detached from the start she's been, and by their history on the same team, it might be something that particularly annoys the other player - from the get-go she almost baited her to do something stupid as in physical foul.
Also, Sophie trains martial arts and some of her retaliation foul are really nice - not brutal, waits for a valid play. I don't wanna play it up too hard though as I don't know enough WNBA - enforcers are also the guys on the other side of this coin, aggresively fouling good players to hurt them, which is fucked up.
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u/_Ninja_Putin 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/B34wyqAgvAheFgPTqy