Flau'jae Johnson is shedding a little more light on how she felt after being coached by Duke's Kara Lawson this summer. Johnson played for Team USA during the 2025 FIBA Women's AmeriCup tournament this July, and Lawson, who played for Tennessee in college and spent 13 seasons playing in the WNBA before she retired in 2015, coached the squad that ultimately won the gold medal.
Johnson shared a clip from the documentary series Flau’jae Johnson — One of a Kind: A New Perspective on social media on Friday, a move that has been interpreted as a partial explanation for her behavior toward Lawson during the Tigers' game against the Blue Devils Thursday.
Johnson speaks over the footage in the clip, which shows her crying while wearing Team USA gear. "I've never been put in this situation where I didn't play," she says. "And I felt like in that moment that I earned it, you know what I'm saying? When I got my opportunity, I actually earned it, you know what I mean?"
What happened between Kara Lawson and Flau'jae Johnson
The disconnect between Johnson and Lawson was thrown into the spotlight Thursday when the Tigers beat the Blue Devils 93-77. Johnson hit a three-pointer during the game's fourth quarter and appeared to look directly at Lawson and speak to her as the coach said, "Good shot" and focused on the game. The body language displayed by both did not appear especially friendly.
It seems the tension between the two goes back to Johnson's experience playing for Team USA in the 2025 FIBA Women's AmeriCup, a team Lawson coached. Johnson notably didn't get a lot of playing time during the tournament: she played 20 minutes in the quarter finals, but that time dropped dramatically to three minutes in the semi-finals and another three minutes in the finals. In fact, Johnson came off the bench to sub in for Vanderbilt sophomore Mikayla Blakes, Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, or TCU's Olivia Miles.
Though Lawson hasn't said much about what happened, Johnson's coach Kim Mulkey did address the situation following Thursday's win. "You know, she didn't have a good experience at USA Basketball with Kara this summer. And so she's had this date circled around [the calendar], and you get nervous, right?" she said of her superstar, who ended the game with 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists, a strong performance no matter what the dynamics surrounding the match are and were.