Kathy Goodman: Sparks clinch the playoffs!
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I had a lot of possible titles for this post. I thought about “A Tale of Two Teams” and “What a difference a day makes.” But really, at the end of the game, there was only one thought going through my head, and that’s what I used as the title: “Sparks clinch the playoffs!”
I really did not think it was going to be this hard, or take this long, or be this close. I thought we’d lose a few games, but end the season with fewer than 20 wins? I would have owed a lot of people a lot of money if we had bet on that at the beginning of the season. And now, here we were, three games from the end of the regular season, wondering if we were even going to qualify for the postseason at all.
All we had to do Tuesday night was beat the team that two nights ago had delivered to us our largest loss since our loss to Detroit in the second game of the season. How hard could that be? The thing about the Sparks this season is it seems like they only win whenever they feel like they have to. Put their backs against the wall and they will play hard. When we finished the first half of the season with a dismal 6-11 record, suddenly it seemed like we would miss the playoffs entirely. So the team went on a winning streak, suddenly winning eight of our next 10 games. Then, when it was down to needing only two more victories to punch our playoff ticket, the team starting losing it again — winning only one of our last four.
So, here we were, one more time. We had to beat San Antonio Tuesday night to ensure we would be in the postseason and to ensure we could not drop to fourth. Earlier in the season, we had beaten the Silver Stars on their home court, but they had beaten us on ours. We were not exactly “evenly matched” teams — since our roster was substantially taller and played inside, and their team was a better passing team and played substantially better from the outside — but we played each other hard and close. The first game was decided by four points, the second by one. That third game between us on Saturday night — I don’t know what that was, but I had decided it was over and I would put it behind me. So, Tuesday, all we had to do was forget our 17-point loss on Saturday and play this team hard and close, and we could get our spot sewn up.
Well, we definitely played them close in the first quarter — score tied, 16-16. They had six assists and four turnovers to our four assists and four turnovers. We had 12 rebounds to their eight. We had 10 points in the paint; they scored six points from outside the three-point line. I would have felt good, but that was how the last game against the Silver Stars started.
Second quarter, we lost our minds. Suddenly we couldn’t get anything to fall. We shot a lousy 30% and San Antonio built and maintained a lead throughout the quarter. After the first four minutes of the quarter, we never got closer than two points and ended the half down by eight. And we hadn’t even played the dreaded third quarter yet. I was sick of running playoff scenarios in my head. Couldn’t we just win the game and have everything locked in?
Third quarter and I wasn’t expecting much. If we could get out of it without losing too much ground, I could again begin to think about possibly winning the game. But I had sat through too many third quarters to start thinking about that just yet. Imagine my glee when the first timeout called to stop the bleeding was not by us, but by San Antonio, when we narrowed their lead from eight to two in just 1 1/2 minutes of basketball.
The third quarter was a battle, with us tying the score four times, but never quite being able to pull ahead until the final second. The play-by-play sheet reads: Candace “Parker lay-up.” Everyone in Staples Center saw a Sportscenter highlight moment when Parker reached back to retrieve a missed jumper by Noelle Quinn and pushed the ball into the net with one hand at the buzzer while falling away. Sparks ended the third quarter up by two and I thought, “We’re going to the playoffs.”
After the first 40 seconds of the fourth quarter, it was all Sparks. We shot over 62% and played a zone defense that perplexed the Silver Stars. We held Becky Hammon to one point and forced her into four turnovers in the quarter. With four minutes left in the game, we were up by seven, in control of the tempo and never looked back.
Lisa Leslie, in her second-to-last home game, led the team with 18 points and Parker had her league-leading 13th double-double of the season. All of our starters scored in double figures except DeLisha Milton-Jones, who still managed to score nine while keeping a hand in Hammon’s face all night on the defensive end, holding her to just 12 points on four for 12 shooting (well below her average of 19.5 points per game.)
There were stretches when I watched the Sparks play some great individual and team basketball that made me wonder how we ever lost a game to anyone this season, and then there were other times (particularly in the first half) when I wondered how we ever won. But at the end, when the streamers fell at Staples and “I Love L.A.” played on the sound system, all I thought was “Finally! Sparks clinch the playoffs!”
-- Kathy Goodman
Goodman is co-owner of the Sparks.