Smart Play Sparks Comets to Victory
The Sparks held the WNBA’s best team under all its league-leading numbers Friday night except for the one that counts the most--the score.
The defending-champion Houston Comets won their 10th in a row and boosted their record to 15-1 by employing cool heads and hands down the stretch.
Houston won, 74-68, before an announced crowd of 8,758 at the Great Western Forum, because it made 22 of 28 free throws and also executed a heady play in the final minute.
Protecting a 72-68 lead with a minute left, the Comets took 29 seconds off the 30-second shot clock before missing a field-goal attempt. The Sparks, at the other end, committed one of their 12 turnovers, closing the door on all opportunities.
The Sparks (5-10), at the season’s halfway mark, registered perhaps their best effort of the season, one certainly equal to their 86-79 win over Eastern Conference leader Charlotte on July 7.
“This ranks right up there,” Coach Julie Rousseau said.
“We’ve played poorly early in the second halves lately and we made a conscious effort tonight to compete early in the second half. We did that, and almost put ourselves in position to win it.”
Houston needed a maximum effort against the inspired Sparks. The Comets had a 43-35 halftime lead but Los Angeles emerged in sizzling fashion from its halftime meeting.
Pam McGee started it with a put-back, then made a jumper from the top of the key and Tamecka Dixon scored on a break to reduce Houston’s lead to 43-41.
The Sparks took the lead midway through the second half and held it for five minutes, once posting a 51-47 advantage. The Comets came back, but the Sparks regained the lead for nearly two minutes. They led for the final time, 66-65, after Lisa Leslie scored on a drive with 5:15 to play.
The Comets came into the game leading the league in three categories, beating opponents by an average 13.6 points per game, averaging 78.2 points and allowing a league-low 64.6 points.
In the end, they were carried to victory by their brilliant league MVP, Cynthia Cooper, 35, who scored 22 points and made all 12 of her free throws in 39 minutes.
It was Cooper who gave the signal to use all of the shot clock with a minute to go, dribbling back and forth across the top of the key, then passing to Kim Perrot.
Again, the Sparks were unhappy with the officials. Houston shot 28 free throws, Los Angeles nine.
The Comets lost Tina Thompson with 8:30 in the first half when she was accidentally kicked in the face by Dixon. She returned in the second half, and had 12 points and five rebounds. Sheryl Swoopes had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Leslie led the Sparks with 18 points and eight rebounds rebounds.
Houston Coach Van Chancellor praised the Sparks’ home-stretch defense.
“Late in the game they really defended us well, and we couldn’t get anything going,” he said.
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The inside-outside combination of Tracy Reid and Tora Suber helped the Charlotte Sting extend their winning streak to five games with an 86-56 victory over the Washington Mystics before 7,665 at Charlotte, N.C. Reid made her first seven shots and finished with 17 points on eight-for-11 shooting. She added eight rebounds, four assists and two steals as the Sting improved their lead in the Eastern Conference to 4 1/2 games. Suber made four of seven three-point shots and finished with a career-high 14 points, helping Charlotte to its largest-ever margin of victory. . . .
Cindy Brown had 16 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Detroit Shock to a 79-67 victory over the Utah Starzz before 8,180 at Auburn Hills, Mich. Utah’s Margo Dydek blocked a league-record eight shots, and added 15 points and 11 rebounds to narrowly miss the first triple-double in league history. The eight blocks broke the previous record of six, which Dydek had tied against the Shock in Utah on Monday.
