Surprise Ending for the Sparks
Portland, even at full strength an unlikely candidate to end the Sparks’ winning streak at 12 games, did just that with two missing starters in an 80-77 victory Tuesday night at the Great Western Forum.
The Fire (6-12) was 0-2 against Los Angeles (16-3), hadn’t won two games in a row all season, and was missing 6-foot-5 Sylvia Crawley and 6-3 Alisa Burras--two starters who average a combined 21 points and 10 rebounds.
Yet Portland started fast, made nine of 15 three-point shots, shot 53.7% from the field and got 29 points from New York castoff Sophia Witherspoon. Moreover, the Fire led almost all the way.
And don’t bother asking Portland Coach Linda Hargrove how her team pulled off the upset.
“I have no idea,” she said, laughing.
“We played great team basketball, for one thing and we rebounded with L.A. almost all the way. We’ve been a good rebounding team all season but we weren’t so good at boxing out. Tonight, we did a lot of things well.”
It looked in the aftermath as if the Fire, an expansion club, had just won the WNBA championship. Its players leaped, bounded and screamed their way down the hallway, making sure the Sparks heard them as they passed by their locker room.
Vanessa Nygaard, who’d given Portland two insurance free throws with 6.5 seconds left, hitched a ride down the hallway on the back of 6-6 Michelle VanGorp.
The Spark locker room, for the first time since a June 13 loss at Seattle, was silent. In fact, there wasn’t much noise of any kind. The crowd, 4,416, was the smallest for the Sparks at the Forum.
“All good things come to an end,” said Coach Michael Cooper.
“This is not the end of the season for us. We got the shot at the end of the game we wanted to win it, but it didn’t fall and that’s basketball.
“But that’s not what beat us. What beat us was the first ten minutes when we let them get into a rhythm that we couldn’t break.”
The shot to which Cooper referred came at the end of the Sparks’ final possession, an open look underneath by DeLisha Milton. At the time, Portland led, 78-77.
Seconds earlier, Witherspoon drove by the Sparks’ Lisa Leslie but missed the layup with 22 seconds left. The Sparks rebounded and called a timeout.
Starting with 19.5 seconds remaining, Leslie got the ball on the baseline, 12 feet from the basket. She hit Milton underneath but her shot rimmed out. Nygaard was fouled on the rebound and she made both free throws with 6.5 seconds left.
Cooper was asked if the announcement moments before the tip-in that Crawley would not play--Burras was already on the injured list--led to complacency.
“Did it take away our edge? I don’t know. I know as a former player when I was playing a team that had some starters out--that got into my psyche, yeah.”
Witherspoon, cast adrift in the expansion draft by the Liberty and claimed as the fifth pick by Portland, had a career game.
In 37 minutes, she was 10 for 17 from the floor, including four for five on three-point attempts.
Mwadi Makika led the Sparks with 22 points.
OTHER WNBA GAME
Lisa Harrison scored a career-high 22 points to lead the Phoenix Mercury (12-6) to a 64-54 victory over over the Minnesota Lynx (10-9) at Phoenix.
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WNBA Wins Streaks
15--HOUSTON
1998
12--SPARKS
2000
9--HOUSTON
1998-99*
9--HOUSTON
2000**
* Over two seasons; ** Active streak
