LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Kelsey Plum banked in the winning shot just before the final buzzer and the Los Angeles Sparks beat the Dallas Wings 81-80 on Wednesday night to spoil rookie Paige Bueckers’ career-high 44-point performance.<\/p>\n
Bueckers scored the most points by a player in a single game in the WNBA this season and tied Cynthia Cooper\u2019s 28-year-old record for most points in a game by a first-year player.<\/p>\n
Bueckers scored Dallas’ final 13 points, the last on a technical free throw with 1:03 remaining for an 80-79 lead. But the Wings (9-27) turned it over after winning the ensuing jump ball and Aziaha James missed a corner 3-pointer with about 20 seconds left to give Los Angeles the final shot.<\/p>\n
Plum used a high screen from Dearica Hamby to get into the lane for a left-handed floater that banked in before she was surrounded by Rickea Jackson and Rae Burrell in celebration.<\/p>\n
Plum finished with 20 points for Los Angeles (17-18). Jackson had 25 points and a career-high six 3-pointers, Hamby added 14 points and Cameron Brink had 11 points and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n
The Sparks’ victory eliminated the Wings and Chicago Sky from playoff contention.<\/p>\n
Bueckers, whose previous high was 35 points against the Phoenix Mercury on June 11, went 17 of 21 from the field, including 4 of 4 from 3-point range, and 6 of 6 at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
Bueckers moved past Cooper for third-longest streak of consecutive double-digit scoring games by a rookie in WNBA history with 29. Las Vegas forward A\u2019ja Wilson holds the record of 33.<\/p>\n
Dallas and Los Angeles met last Friday, with the Sparks securing a 97-96 victory despite Bueckers scoring a game-high 29. The teams will meet again in Los Angeles on Sept. 7. The Sparks have won eight of the last 11 meetings with the Wings.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Kelsey Plum banked in the winning shot just before the final buzzer and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-86051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}