Sparks Turn Back Longshot

Katie Smith, the onetime long-range shooter from Ohio State and now a member of the Minnesota Lynx and the U.S. Olympic team, nearly hurt the Los Angeles Sparks’ growing reputation as a premier WNBA defensive team Saturday night.

In the last 5:45 of a game the Sparks won, 82-75, Smith made three consecutive three-point shots while being guarded by one of the Sparks’ best defenders, Mwadi Mabika.

The third one went in with 2:58 to go, reducing the Sparks’ lead to 74-71. However, Mabika and Ukari Figgs countered with three-point baskets of their own and the Sparks were back in control.

With 50 seconds left, guard Tamecka Dixon delivered a final blow for the Sparks--one to the throat of Smith as she drove to the basket. Smith, still wobbly, made both free throws but the outcome had already been decided before a disappointed 9,381 at Target Center.

So the Sparks registered a second victory over a supposedly improved Western Conference foe--Utah was the first--to start the season.

Minnesota fell to 1-2, despite a dazzling second-half offensive show by Smith, who had four points at halftime but finished with 33, including 15 in the final 5:45.

Spark center Lisa Leslie, who had her 33rd WNBA double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds, said Coach Michael Cooper was worried at halftime that Smith had scored so few points.

“Coach told us to watch out for Katie in the second half, that she would find a way to hurt us late in the game,” Leslie said.

Said Cooper: “Katie is as good a shooter as there is in this league--she got 33 tonight and she did it with one of our best defenders, Mwadi, on her.”

Otherwise, it was a masterful defensive effort by the Sparks. Nearly every pass and shot was challenged, with Leslie and DeLisha Milton limiting the Lynx’s inside duo of Kristin Folkl and Andrea Lloyd-Curry to a combined eight shots and 10 points.

The Sparks, however, were impatient on offense. They led 37-30 at halftime, but had taken nine shots in their half-court offense with 20 or more seconds remaining on the shot clock.

Said Cooper: “Ukari and Nicky [McCrimmon] both know I want them to slow it down a bit, to get a good first shot.”

Smith, meanwhile, looks as if she’s intent on winning the league’s scoring title. She had 34 points in the season opener against Cleveland, and 24 in a Thursday loss to Utah. In 38 minutes Saturday, she took 20 shots, making nine. She was six for 13 on three-point shots, and started her late-game streak with one from about three feet behind the line that tied the score at 62.

But the Sparks bounced back, with Clarisse Machanguana starting a 6-0 run with a basket off a drive. A three-point play by Leslie gave the Sparks a 74-68 lead just before Smith’s final three-point basket.

Former UCLA standout Maylana Martin, whoplayed four minutes in each of the Lynx’s first two games, didn’t play.