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With about two and a half minutes to go in the first quarter against the Washington Mystics on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Sparks found themselves down by 16 points. At the end of the first quarter, they trailed by ten, 26-16. With a post-All-Star hangover threatening to get the second half of the WNBA season off to a poor start, the Sparks made a comeback to ultimately grab a 93-86 win against the Mystics. And it was a huddle on the bench, that according to Dearica Hamby, set the Sparks’ comeback in motion.
“We came into the huddle and we knew we were playing like s**t, and so just reminding ourselves that we can’t get any worse than that, and we need to f**king play defense,” Hamby said following the game. “Also, we were turning the ball very and we’re a team that typically feeds off our offense. So once we started seeing the ball go in, I felt like we got better on both ends. Just the consistency of what we’ve been talking about all season, playing through it, we did it. We’re learning how to win.”
The Sparks trailed 26-16 after the first quarter. But their defense held the Mystics to only nine points in the second quarter, while they scored 24 of their own, to end up ahead 40-35 by halftime.
Dearica Hamby did her part throughout the game to help get the Sparks a win. She scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds to go along with three assists, two steals and one blocked shot in. She shot 10-of-14 from the field.
It was Hamby’s 48th double-double of her career, and her play against the Mystics made the case as to why she was one of the bigger All-Star snubs this season.
“I just try to show up in any way that I can. Some nights, most nights it’s offensively, but just trying to keep the team in rhythm and continue to encourage us to move the ball and play with each other, and it find everybody,” Hamby said. “Everybody’s buying into the system right now, and we talked about that the beginning of the year. When we do that, everybody’s going to eat. And we’re showing that the last month.”
Coming into Tuesday’s game, Hamby had appeared in all 22 games of the first half of the season at a little over 32 minutes per game. She’s been averaging 17.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.9 steals with splits of 53.7 percent shooting from the field, 30.3 percent shooting from the three-point line and 61.3 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
The Sparks will continue their road trip with a game against the Connecticut Sun on Thursday, before culminating with a game against the New York Liberty on Saturday. Right before the All-Star break, the Sparks had begun to show signs of consistency. As they continue their quest to make the playoffs, each game becomes magnified.
