This Ring a Real Sparkler

Michael Cooper gazed up at the Laker championship banners that hang in Staples Center before his Sparks played the Charlotte Sting in Game 2 of the WNBA finals and had one thought. “Where are they going to put ours?” Make way.

The Sparks became the first team other than Houston to win the WNBA title Saturday with a relentless 82-54 victory in the best-of-three series, their 28-point margin doubling the largest in WNBA finals history. A keyed-up crowd of 13,141 that included Jerry West and Laker guard Derek Fisher watched as the unstoppable Lisa Leslie and injured but fiercely determined guard Tamecka Dixon completed a Los Angeles sweep of the NBA and WNBA titles.

“I’ve been here all my life watching the Los Angeles Lakers, watching Coach Cooper win championships in the ‘80s, watching Shaquille [O’Neal] and Kobe [Bryant] do it again in the ‘90s, 2000, and this has been my goal and my dream come true,” said Leslie, who played at Inglewood Morningside High and USC. Leslie’s charmed year ended with yet a another trinket. She was named finals MVP after scoring 24 points and adding 13 rebounds, seven blocked shots and six assists.

Add that to Olympic gold and a sweep of the league MVP awards: regular-season, all-star and championship. Only O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Willis Reed have swept the NBA MVP awards.

The Sparks’ victory was born of toughness--and of tears. “Last year we were left crying on the floor in the locker room for an hour,” Leslie said, remembering the Western Conference playoff loss to Houston.

There were plenty of tears this time--including those Cooper wiped from his eyes with both hands in the final minutes. “There’s no comparison with my playing days as far as coaching,” said Cooper, a member of five NBA championship teams.

“With the Lakers, I had something to say about it. I was the one making free throws, defending people. Here, you try to tell players how to do it and if they don’t do it, it’s not going to get done. That’s the biggest difference and that’s why this one is, to me, a lot sweeter than any of the championships I’ve won.”

It was sweet for Dixon too, who didn’t know if she’d be able to play Saturday morning because of a chronic heel injury she aggravated during Thursday’s victory at Charlotte.

“When we left Charlotte, we wheeled her through the airport in a wheelchair,” Cooper said. “When we got off the bus, she was on crutches. The injury she has is like having a thorn in your heel, and every time you step down on it, that thorn is digging deeper and deeper. She was in pain, but she said, ‘Coach, if I can watch, I’m going to go.”’

Dixon not only started, she played 37 minutes, not coming out until 2:44 remained. She scored 13 points and added seven assists and two blocked shots.

“It’s painful. It really is,” said Dixon, who has been advised her foot needs three months of rest. Time enough for that now. The Sparks started slowly, misfiring repeatedly to fall behind, 10-3. But with Mwadi Mabika making consecutive three-pointers and relieving Dixon defensively to guard Charlotte’s Andrea Stinson, the Sparks delivered the first inklings of a blowout by taking a 32-19 lead.

Stinson was held to six points after scoring 18 in Game 1, and Allison Feaster, guarded largely by Dixon, was held to seven. An eight-point halftime lead became all but insurmountable when the Sparks started with an 11-1 burst.

“It was hard not to be emotional, but we were very emotional in Game 2 against Sacramento at the beginning and then we lost,” Leslie said. This time, they stayed focused, the story of the Sparks’--and Leslie’s--season.

Charlotte Coach Anne Donovan said as much.

“I think in the past, physical play may have distracted her or officiating might take her out of the game,” Donovan said.

“I think what Anne said, it’s correct,” Leslie said. “The one thing I learned about myself going back and watching the tapes of all the losses that we’ve had is that I’m physically capable of doing this and dominating the game, but the mental part was not there. Players would say, ‘Just try to get into Lisa’s head. If you get into Lisa’s head, you’ve got them.’

“I wanted to be able to make sure that I was strong enough mentally as well as physically Now that we have that, they better watch out.”

The Sparks are all talking of other championships, though the Houston Comets might have something to say when Sheryl Swoopes returns from injury.

Milton only hopes this might get her better seats next time she asks to go to a Laker playoff game after getting nosebleeds before.

“Yeah, I hope we’ll have a little more pull around here,” she said. “I want to sit on the floor. I want to sit by Shaq’s Mom and Dad.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MVP Times Three

Like Shaquille O’Neal during the 1999-2000 NBA season, the Sparks’ Lisa Leslie made a sweep of the WNBA’s most-valuable-player awards for the All-Star game, regular season and playoffs. Her numbers:

All-Star game: 20 points, nine rebounds, three blocked shots.

Regular season: 19.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks in 31 games.

Playoffs: 22.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, 4.8 blocks in seven games.