No Shock Here--Sparks Win

The Sparks may be defending league champions with victories in six of their first seven games, but they still have some holes to fill.

Even in the WNBA’s short, 32-game regular season, deficiencies show up. And one of them has been the Sparks’ defense, which looked spectacular two weeks ago in Houston but has not achieved that level since.

So Tuesday’s game against winless Detroit was an opportunity for Los Angeles to rediscover the benefit of bottling up an overmatched opponent.

The verdict? The scoreboard showed a 90-80 Spark victory before 7,487 at Staples Center. The game wasn’t that close; Los Angeles (6-1) led by as many as 21 points in the second half before Coach Michael Cooper cleared his bench.

And did the Sparks reassert themselves defensively? Yes, with a couple of reservations.

The 0-7 Shock probably would have scored about 15 fewer points if Cooper had left his starters in. And while the Sparks did show more defensive aggressiveness for about 30 of the 40 minutes, it evaporated as the game got out of hand.

Last year Cooper might have fumed afterward about Detroit narrowing the score at the end. But on Tuesday he was upbeat.

“Usually you can come out flat against a team like that,” Cooper said. “But I thought we did a good job overall. We were moving the ball well and took advantage of their defensive rotations, which were kind of slow at times.”

The players also remembered how opponents are looking for any sign of not being taken seriously.

“You don’t ever want to underestimate a team that hasn’t won,” said Lisa Leslie, who, along with DeLisha Milton, led the Sparks with 18 points. “We learned that lesson two years ago when we played a Seattle team that was in last place and lost to them. And Detroit has good players who play hard and are aggressive.

“I thought defensively we did a good job. Sometimes when a team doesn’t really know where its offense is coming from, it’s harder to guard. When you play Houston, you know Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson are gonna take a lot of shots and you know to keep an eye on them. Tonight we also wanted to stay at home more, not switch so much, and if we got beat we got beat all the way.”

By stretching their league-record home winning streak to 25 games, the Sparks demonstrated why they are a dangerous offensive team. Five players scored in double figures.

Los Angeles shot well--56.7% from the field, 76.9% from three-point range--and outrebounded Detroit, 32-27. The Sparks also had 27 assists, and most of their 21 turnovers came when trying to make the extra pass.

Detroit, which got 18 points from Deanna Nolan and 15 points from Swin Cash, had moments, but many came after the game was decided.

Once the Sparks had built a 20-8 lead, they worked to sustain the early defensive momentum established when the Shock missed nine of its first 11 shots.

They moved between man-to-man and zone defenses, battled around screens and tried to keep a hand in the face of any Detroit shooter. The Sparks also avoided silly fouls.

It worked for the first half. The Shock was held to 32.4% field-goal shooting, had five shots blocked, was outrebounded, 20-13, and trailed, 46-32, at halftime.

Although Detroit had little chance of coming back, Coach Greg Williams saw some encouraging signs.

“We played better tonight than in our other losses,” Williams said. “If we keep playing hard, our wins will come.”