Sparks’ Streak Is a Record
If you want to know how good life is for the Sparks right now, consider this.
On Sunday against the Portland Fire, standout center Lisa Leslie, the team’s leading scorer, didn’t make a field goal until the 9:25 mark of the second half. She played only 19 minutes because of foul trouble and even drew a technical foul for openly dismissing Fire center Sylvia Crawley.
And Los Angeles still had more than enough to cruise past Portland, 90-75, before 9,312 at Staples Center.
The victory kept the Sparks spotless at 8-0, as well as setting a WNBA record for the most victories to open a season. The old standard of seven was shared by New York (1997) and Houston (1999).
“We’re not complacent about what we’ve done, but we are taking our season one game at a time,” Leslie said. “We’re just focusing on who’s next, because you can look at the whole schedule and it can be overwhelming.”
Equally impressive was the fact Los Angeles was coming off a Saturday night game at Seattle and did not arrive in Los Angeles until noon Sunday.
Portland, which played at Sacramento on Saturday, fell to 4-2 as its own four-game winning streak ended.
“We weren’t worried about [the winning streak],” Spark Coach Michael Cooper said. “We worried about taking the steps we need to take. The key is to play well. And I thought tonight was another big plus after last night’s victory to come home and play well.”
If the Sparks did have heavy legs, it didn’t show. Cooper used all 11 players, spreading the scoring and the defensive workload. Leslie and Temecka Dixon led Los Angeles with 13 points each, but six other Sparks had at least eight points.
Portland’s Sophia Witherspoon led all scorers with 19.
The collective effort showed up in other areas. Mwadi Mabika, with a game-high nine rebounds, helped Los Angeles sew up the boards, 39-25, and control the game’s pace. It was a big reason Portland, which usually plays its entire roster, could never get its running game going enough to drain the Sparks.
“We tried to jump on them early,” Dixon said. “We knew fatigue would eventually set in for both teams, so we tried to catch them when we were fresh. But I thought our bench was deeper than theirs tonight. Everybody contributed.”
Whenever the Fire--which never led, and trailed by as much as 22 points--threatened to make it a close game, Latasha Byears got an offensive rebound and put it back in. Or Rhonda Mapp made a baseline jumper. Or Nicole Levandusky made consecutive three-pointers. Or Dixon schooled heralded Portland rookie Jackie Stiles with a crossover dribble and pull-up jumper.
Seldom-used Vedrana Grgin-Fonseca made three of five shots and scored 10 points in 13 minutes to make up for Leslie’s off night.
“Again, that’s why the addition of Rhonda Mapp and Latasha Byears was so important,” Cooper said. “They don’t play big minutes, but the minutes they play are big. And I have to commend three other ladies, Nicole, Vedrana and Wendy [Willits]. They haven’t been getting a lot of minutes lately, but we’re gonna need them. They were superb tonight.
“It’s going to take a team effort this year. With the league getting more parity, everybody’s going to have to be ready to play. Those days where Houston won with three players is over with.”
Grgin-Fonseca said that is something the whole team believes.
“We know we have to be ready when the coach calls on us,” she said. “We bench players don’t play much, but when he needs us, we have to step up and give our best.”
Portland’s best was something Coach Linda Hargrove did not see, especially after the Sparks broke open the game with a 23-8 burst in the first half to lead 31-13, and never trailed by more than 12 after that.
“I am really disappointed with our energy on defense,” Hargrove said. “I thought that Los Angeles did whatever they wanted to do offensively against us and we came out flat in the beginning. I give L.A. a lot of credit, but I think our defense just really wasn’t there.”
Then again, Portland had to play a Los Angeles team that has everything going its way.