Rosters Remain Unclear After Sparks Defeat Liberty

The Sparks defeated the New York Liberty, 68-62, at Long Beach State on Saturday in the WNBA exhibition opener for both teams.

Both coaches, the Sparks’ Michael Cooper and the Liberty’s Richie Adubato, are coming down to the final 10 days before their opening-day rosters must be set. And both are missing players still finishing up their overseas commitments that figure in those final decisions.

It didn’t sound as if much was sorted out after the game, which 2,986 fans saw at the Pyramid.

“Unfortunately, some people we thought might not make the team played very well tonight, so that’s the way it goes,” Adubato said. “We had peaks and valleys in the game ... so we turned ball over a lot. But we had to give them all a chance to play.”

Cooper said he was relatively happy with what he saw.

“I was more pleased by our effort than our execution,” he said. “The main thing is the effort was there; people were playing hard, getting back on defense. And some people showed they deserved to be on this team.”

Starting forward DeLisha Milton-Jones and rookie forward Candace Sutton were the only Sparks held out of the game. Milton-Jones is recovering from an off-season knee injury and has been wearing the brace needed to support the knee for a couple of days. Sutton is recovering from an injured shoulder suffered during practice last week.

“With Milton-Jones, we’re just taking it day by day,” Cooper said. “She has gone full contact with us in practice in the half court, but we want to get her going [full] court a few times in the brace.”

Even with the shuttling in and out of players, Los Angeles -- which led, 40-30, at halftime -- looked smoother in the first half on offense than New York.

New York, whose main mode of attack was from behind the three-point line (11 of 27), twice got the deficit down to three points in the second half. But 21 turnovers (as well as a 24-29 deficit on the boards) kept the Liberty from getting the lead.

Lisa Leslie led all scorers with 25 points and had nine rebounds.

Becky Hammon led New York with 16 points.

Other new Sparks having strong debuts were rookie Doneeka Hodges with 12 points on six-for-eight shooting, and Tamika Whitmore, who played last year with New York, with eight points and four rebounds.