LOS ANGELES — No one would have blamed the LA Sparks if they folded up shop a mere nine minutes into Sunday’s game.
Twenty-four hours after dropping a pivotal road game to the Golden State Valkyries, the Sparks were playing in front of their home fans, looking disheveled and haggard. Passes were astray, shots were wide of the mark, and everything just seemed amiss. It all led to them being on the wrong end of a 17-0 run from the night’s visitors, the Seattle Storm.
But when the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard showed just how much had changed in recent weeks during this rollercoaster Sparks season: they won, 94-91.
“I think they’re learning [how to win],” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said of her team. “I think it took us a quarter to kind of get the lead out from the game last night and the travel, and you climb in bed at midnight, and then you get up and you gotta reattack. It’s emotionally hard, and these guys chose to get up and reattack. That’s learning how to win, too.”
Trailing by seven with 2:30 left, Dearica Hamby found her form, scoring seven points in that span, all of them to tie or give her team the lead—none more instrumental than the final three, which came after a bullying and-one in the paint against 19-year-old rookie Dominique Malonga.
The Sparks are fun. But more importantly, they’re resilient.
“It’s exciting to play that kind of game, and at the end when you make the shot that we need, it’s a great feeling as a team,” guard Julie Allemand said postgame. “It’s everybody. When we play like that, we have so much fun, and it was tough for us at the beginning of the game, but then we came back. With the bench, we came back. When it’s a team win, the feeling is so different, and it’s just amazing to win like that.”
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