Sparks respond, beat Comets
The Sparks don’t have Chamique Holdsclaw, Lisa Leslie or Temeka Johnson, but LaToya Thomas, Marta Fernandez and Taj McWilliams-Franklin are still around.
Good thing for the Sparks.
Thomas, who took the suddenly retired Holdsclaw’s place as the fifth player in a lineup that was left incomplete until game time, and Fernandez, who took over many of the former star’s responsibilities on the court, combined with McWilliams-Franklin down the stretch to help the Sparks finish off the Houston Comets, 74-71, Wednesday night at Staples Center.
“I’m not going to say we were lucky, but we came together and played as a team,” Thomas said. “We knew we had distractions coming in, but that’s not something we talk about on the court.”
There wasn’t much for the Sparks to say in the wake of Holdsclaw’s abrupt retirement, announced Monday after she had been the team’s leading scorer with an average of 15.8 points through the first five games.
For the second game in a row, that status fell to McWilliams-Franklin, who finished with a team-high 20 points after scoring 10 in the fourth quarter. Thomas wound up with 16 points, four rebounds and three assists, and Fernandez showed off her ball-handling and passing skills while contributing 10 points and five assists.
The trio was instrumental in breaking the last of five ties in the game, 62-62, with 8 minutes 22 seconds to play.
An 8-0 run that put the Sparks (4-2) ahead, 70-62, was enough to hold off the Comets (0-8), even without Holdsclaw, or star center Leslie, who is awaiting the birth of her first child, or point guard Johnson, who is still nursing an injured knee.
Other options for the Sparks proved to be forward Murriel Page, who finished with 13 points, and Kiesha Brown, one of two free agents signed Wednesday by the Sparks in an effort to fill the void left by Holdsclaw.
Brown, a guard who finished with nine points off the bench, entered with 1:47 to play in the first quarter and made a steal in the backcourt and made a layup to give the Sparks a 16-14 lead at the end of the period.
In the second quarter, she made a three-point basket with 6:50 to go in the half that put the Sparks ahead, 26-20.
Brown’s shot preceded a 12-4 run by the Sparks over a four-minute span that gave them a 40-27 lead, their largest of the game, with 2:32 to play in the second quarter. The Sparks led, 42-36, at halftime.
“It’s a good win for us,” Coach Michael Cooper said. “This was one of the most dangerous teams to play, because they came in with nothing to lose.”