Another game against the Atlanta Dream? Another wild, down-to-the-wire win.
With time running down, Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike reached over four other players to corral a rebound, and with just a couple ticks of the clock left, she put up a shot with 0.1 left to put the Sparks ahead for good, 66-64, on Thursday at Staples Center.
And with that, the Sparks are, indeed, heading in the right direction to start the second half of the schedule, healthier and scaling the WNBA standings with playoff positioning clear in their sights.
With three consecutive home victories in the books, they’re heading on the road for a six-game trip starting Sunday in New York, where they’ll try to extend their season-best three-game winning streak.
On Thursday, the Sparks won their second consecutive against Atlanta, who they defeated 84-80 in overtime on Tuesday. The win was the Sparks’ 18th in a row at Staples Center dating back to 2019.
“We really needed this going onto the three-game road trip,” said Ogwumike, who finished with 17 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals.
In the third of a nine-games-in-19-days stretch, the Sparks (9-13) didn’t exactly light it up offensively, and seized up in a big way down the stretch, but they did enough.
Atlanta (6-16) scored just nine points in the first quarter, but the Sparks put up just 10 in the fourth as the Dream came roaring back, tying it up 64-64 on Crystal Bradford’s 3-pointer with 32.8 seconds left.
Courtney Williams (who scored a season-low four points Tuesday) was Atlanta’s most reliable threat Thursday. She scored 23 points on 10-for-22 shooting and a game-high 11 rebounds.
Former Arizona star Aari McDonald scored all 15 of her points in the second half after Candice Dupree scored all 10 of hers in the first half. Former Spark guard Odyssey Sims (who scored a season-high 26 points on Tuesday) had just 1 point Thursday.
The Sparks were balanced offensively, moving the ball well (with 16 assists on 25 makes) — including a few nifty high-low Kristi Toliver-to-Ogwumike connections.
Toliver finished with 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting and 10 assists.
The Sparks used a 12-2 run to push the lead to 52-35 on a pair of Amanda Zahui B. free throws with 3:22 to play in the third quarter.
But Atlanta kept swinging, closing the gap to 53-43 shortly before the end of the third quarter and then to 62-55 midway with 4:34 to go the fourth. A free throw from McDonald cut it to 62-56 with 1:40 to play and her 3-pointer trimmed it further, to 64-61.
Between Ogwumike’s basket with 5:21 to play and Brittney Sykes’ wide-open layin with 1:20 to go, the Sparks were scoreless. They didn’t score again after that until Ogwumike’s game-winning layup to end their latest nail-biter.
More to come on this story.
Thank you all for the love and support entering this new journey with the @dallasmavs. So thankful for this opportunity and can’t wait to get to work. #MAVS
— Kristi Toliver (@KristiToliver) August 20, 2021
