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The Los Angeles Sparks suffered their second consecutive loss, a heartbreaking 89-86 defeat, against the Phoenix Mercury. The Sparks had their chances in the fourth quarter as they battled back from a double-digit deficit, but it wasn’t enough to get across the finish line. Following the game, Sparks star Kelsey Plum took full responsibility for the loss.
It was a tough third quarter that ultimately did the Sparks in, proving too much to come back from. Plum lamented her role in that third quarter collapse and vowed to get better.
“We had six turnovers, I probably had four, and then maybe a couple of bad shots which are basically turnovers. And I got to figure out when teams load up, how to make them pay,” Plum said during the postgame press conference. “I feel like I definitely let us down in the third quarter. I’m a leader to this team and I can’t come out and have a stretch where things don’t happen. We don’t score, we don’t make plays.”
The Mercury started the second half on a 10-0 run, with several of those baskets coming off Sparks turnovers. It wasn’t until the 6:28 mark of the third quarter that the Sparks got their first points of the second half. The Sparks had a total of 16 turnovers with Plum having half of them (eight).
But despite that, the Sparks made a late surge in the fourth quarter and even pulled to within one, 87-86, with four seconds remaining off a clutch jumper from Plum. But Plum’s potential game-tying shot, a deep three-pointer as time expired, was off the mark.
After the game, Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts felt like the third quarter hole the team put themselves in was just a little too much to overcome in the end.
“We just kind of hiccuped there in the third quarter offensively, and we were playing catch-up the whole rest of the game,” Roberts said. “I think we all feel like we shouldn’t have been in those situations. We put ourselves in those situations to where we were down like that, and I got to do a better job of getting them better out of halftime, and that’s on me.”
With the loss, the Sparks fall to 1-2 on the season. They will return home on Friday, May 23 against the Golden State Valkyries. The Sparks defeated the Valkyries last Friday in the season-opener for both teams.
