Sparks Must Go to Whip
As WNBA teams pass the seven-eighths pole, the Sparks begin a sprint to the Western Conference finish line that they hope will carry them to the league’s 48-hour postseason.
Los Angeles (10-13) plays the Utah Starzz (6-17) in Salt Lake City tonight, returns home for games against Phoenix, New York and Sacramento, and finishes the regular season at Phoenix on Aug. 24.
Recent events suggest that final game at America West Arena may be for the conference championship.
Phoenix (12-11) leads in a conference where .500 basketball has been largely unattainable. And because the playoffs match the two conference champions against the two teams with the next-best records, it probably means only the winner from the Western Conference will qualify for the semifinals Aug. 28. The winners of those two games will play for the championship Aug. 30 in the arena of the team with the better record.
Until this week, it looked as if Phoenix was trying to hand over the conference title to Los Angeles.
The Mercury had lost eight of its previous 10 while the Sparks’ game had been improving. Then Cheryl Miller’s team defeated New York and Cleveland in Phoenix, suggesting the Mercury intended to compete for the conference title after all.
Houston (16-7) and New York (15-7) from the East are the clear front-runners for the playoffs, with Phoenix, Charlotte (12-10), Cleveland (12-12) and the Sparks (10-13) gunning for the third and fourth berths.
“We know what we have to do,” Spark Coach Julie Rousseau said.
“We need to win out, starting at Utah. We need to go up there and take away [Elena] Baranova’s three-point shot and block out [Wendy] Palmer in the paint, and kind of set the tone for the home stand by winning that game.”
Rousseau is optimistic for tonight. After all, the Sparks play better on the road. They’ve won four of their last five road games and lost their last two home games.
They defeated New York and Cleveland on the last trip and believe they would have beaten Houston (they lost, 72-71), had a few fouls been called the other way.
“Even with all our mistakes at Houston, that’s probably the best single game we’ve played,” Rousseau said.
The Sparks have beaten the Starzz in their last two meetings, both at the Forum. But in the season’s second game, at Salt Lake, Utah won, 102-89.
Los Angeles goes to Utah short-handed. Reserve guard Mwadi Mabika, whose two-week-old sprained ankle was not responding to treatment, was put on injured reserve Friday, meaning she’s probably finished for the season. The club activated developmental player Kim Gessig, a 6-foot-3 forward from USC.
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Sophia Witherspoon scored 13 of her game-high 21 points in the first half as the New York Liberty ended its three-game losing streak with a 79-63 victory over the Sacramento Monarchs.
The crowd of 15,855 was the fourth largest of the season at Madison Square Garden.
The victory moved New York (15-8) into a first-place tie in the Eastern Conference with the Houston Comets. Pam McGee had 17 points for the Monarchs (9-16).