Leslie Doesn’t Miss a Beat in Victory
Lisa Leslie could be forgiven if she had been sleepwalking through the Sparks’ game with San Antonio on Wednesday. After all, she hadn’t been back from Athens that long. And when the game started, it was already Thursday morning to her body clock.
But when Leslie is going well, so are the Sparks. And she was in good form Wednesday, scoring a season-high 27 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in the Sparks’ 77-69 victory in front of 8,730 at Staples Center.
“I didn’t shoot the ball very well,” said Leslie, who was seven of 21 from the field but 13 of 14 from the free-throw line. “But my teammates were very unselfish and they just kept telling me to shoot the ball. I could have done better, I was tired in some spurts, but it was fun.”
Leslie wasn’t the only standout. Tamecka Dixon had 15 points, and Christi Thomas and Tamika Whitmore each added 13 for the Sparks (20-7).
LaToya Thomas had 18 for San Antonio (6-21), which lost its sixth in a row.
“I think that our team played well,” San Antonio Coach Shell Dailey said. “We have a lot of new players on our team and they have to get used to our style of play. I’m pleased with how well they did together.”
The win was the sixth in a row for the Sparks and, coupled with Seattle’s loss in Sacramento, moved them 2 1/2 games ahead in the Western Conference.
But the victory was also tempered by the potential loss of Mwadi Mabika, who injured her left knee on a drive to the basket at the 17:11 mark of the second half. X-rays taken at Staples Center were negative, but Mabika is scheduled to undergo a MRI exam today.
“Right now it looks like it’s just a sprain,” Spark Coach Karleen Thompson said. “She said she came down on it funny. She’ll get it checked to make sure everything is OK.”
Even though the Sparks are in a tight race with Seattle for first place, Thompson wasn’t beyond doing a little experimenting.
She juggled the starting lineup Wednesday, putting Leslie at power forward and using rookie Christi Thomas at center.
“It’s a lineup [assistant coach] Ryan [Weisenberg] and I want to see,” Thompson said. “Christi is a big body and she’ll give us rebounding. We have other people that can rebound, but Christi is very mobile. So they just can’t double-team Lisa.”
While helping to guard San Antonio’s 7-2 center Margo Dydek -- “Oh man, that’s a big girl,” Thomas said -- the Spark rookie made five of seven shots and collected nine rebounds. Also showing little signs of rust was Dixon, who was seven of 12 from the field.
In fact both teams looked surprisingly spry considering the month-long hiatus. There were only 24 turnovers combined and the Silver Stars were willing to run up-and-down the court just as freely as Sparks. Nine of the 11 Stars who appeared in the game contributed at least one basket.
Los Angeles led, 36-32, at the half, but busted out of the locker room with a 7-0 spurt to start the second half to take control of the game. San Antonio never got closer than three points after that.