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In their first game immediately following the WNBA All-Star break, the Los Angeles Sparks grabbed a 93-86 win on the road against the Washington Mystics. Going back to before the break, the Sparks had won two games in a row which brought their win streak to three games after beating the Mystics. For a team that’s been searching for consistency all season, Dearica Hamby believes the Sparks have found the answer.
Following Tuesday’s win in Washington, Dearica Hamby spoke about how the Sparks have set all ego aside and how it’s contributed to this recent win streak.
“I would say everybody from to bottom, we’ve had a lot of hard conversations in this locker room. And we’re seeing it pay off,” Hamby said. “It’s not personal anymore. We all have an end goal and we all want each other to do well, and we want to win. So ego goes out the window and it’s just about being better, and we’re doing that.”
Earlier in the season, Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts had noticed a tendency for the team to revert back to isolation basketball when they got down in games. It was a trend that Hamby had noticed as well in that the team often panicked late in games and that’s what caused players to run ISOs instead of the team ball that had them in games to begin with.
Another thing that had been singled out by Roberts was that instead of playing to win late in games, the Sparks would play not to lose. There’s a difference, a difference that Roberts has seen during this win streak.
“There’s a sense where these guys are starting to play to win, not just play and hope we win. That’s a mindset and that’s a different mentality, and they’re figuring that out,” Roberts said after the Mystics win. “The intensity level is different. It’s just starting to really click. And I think they can feel it. I see it. It makes my job easier in terms of just they’re figuring it out. These guys are pros and they’re elite. I’ve found the less I do, the better we play in terms of they can just kind of play off each other and take what the defense gives us.”
Following the Mystics win, the Sparks would defeat the Connecticut Sun, 101-86, to bring their streak to four games. Their current road trip concludes on Sunday against the New York Liberty before returning home against the Las Vegas Aces on July 29 to close out the month.
