{"id":315183,"date":"2026-05-14T09:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/315183\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:49:13","slug":"caitlin-clark-and-indiana-fever-roll-to-win-over-sparks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/315183\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark and Indiana Fever roll to win over Sparks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes all it takes is one bad quarter. To coach Lynne Roberts<\/a>, that\u2019s what burnt the Sparks on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

During an 87-78 loss<\/a> to Caitlin Clark<\/a> and the Indiana Fever at home, the Sparks<\/a> made a late 11-3 run but it was far too little, too late after the Fever outscored the Sparks 24-14 in the second on 60% shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to show up to play when it\u2019s the first quarter,\u201d said point guard Kelsey Plum<\/a>. \u201cIf you ever notice the pattern in the [WNBA,] talent is pretty spread out across the board. The hardest team playing wins a lot of the time. You got to make shots and stuff, but it\u2019s kind of magical when you play hard, you kind of end up making shots. So I think that we have to have the intensity that we had in that run for a sustained game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plum scored 25 points and Dearica Hamby<\/a> added 16 points and eight rebounds, but the Sparks (0-2) were never really in it against the high-powered Fever after the brutal second frame.<\/p>\n

\"Fever <\/p>\n

Fever guard Caitlin Clark attempts a pass while falling to the court Sparks guard Erica Wheeler steps around her Wednesday at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

(Jae C. Hong \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The Sparks finished with 19 turnovers, which the Fever (1-1) capitalized on with 24 points.<\/p>\n

The first quarter was a track meet. Indiana shot 53% and the Sparks went 47% from the floor, even with Cameron Brink\u2019s<\/a> monster block on Clark. Indiana extended an 11-point lead midway through the second quarter. By halftime, it was a 14-point deficit for the Sparks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the second half,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWe just had a really bad second quarter, offensively and defensively. I thought we came out a little reactive versus reading what they were doing, versus attacking them defensively, which I thought we did in the second half, and it was effective. So we\u2019ve got to put 40 minutes together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indiana outscored the Sparks 20-18 in the third quarter to lead by as much as 21 before the Fever\u2019s shooting finally cooled to five for 14.<\/p>\n

Behind some late baskets from Brink during an 11-3 run, the Sparks cut it to a seven-point deficit with just under two minutes left in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Brink had a strong game (11 points, five rebounds, three blocks) after Roberts called for the third-year player to have more confidence off the bench. On Wednesday, she denied the notion that Brink was off to a \u201cslow start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played two games,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cShe had a great game today. So the narrative of like, \u2018What\u2019s going on with Cam?\u2019 it\u2019s nothing. She\u2019s doing great. So we got to stop the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sparks went two for 15 from three-point range and missed their final 13 attempts. Roberts said they would need to take more \u2014 and make \u2014 those shots going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a work in progress on that side,\u201d she noted. \u201c… In a spaced out offense, we\u2019ve got to be able to knock down more threes more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defensively, there was some progress, but the second quarter was too much to overcome. For much of the game, small forward Rae Burrell<\/a> guarded Clark, who netted 24 points with nine assists. Shooting guard Kelsey Mitchell also finished with 23 points.<\/p>\n

The Sparks will face the Toronto Tempo on Friday, their first matchup with the expansion club that picked up its first franchise win on Wednesday against Seattle.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of areas to grow between consistent perimeter defense, range shooting and more spread out scoring.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been just two games, but it might take some time for the Sparks to get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have all the faith in the world that when the regular season is over, we will be there in the playoffs and pushing,\u201d Plum said. \u201cSo I have faith that it\u2019s just the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etc.<\/p>\n

Before the game, Roberts said forward Sania Feagin strained her lower left leg during the off day on Monday and will be out \u201cfor a little bit,\u201d but the hope was that it\u2019s not serious. … Atkins left Wednesday\u2019s game against the Fever during the third quarter with a head injury and didn\u2019t return. She finished with two points on free throws while shooting 0 for 4 from the field in 16 minutes. Roberts said that the shooting guard got \u201cclocked\u201d by an elbow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes all it takes is one bad quarter. To coach Lynne Roberts, that\u2019s what burnt the Sparks on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[130070,131482,131932,11155,24906,17976,423,131931,9520,48,52,51,47,50,49,3289,1417,7555,86805,87217,316],"class_list":["post-315183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ariel-atkins","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-cameron-brink","tag-defense","tag-deficit","tag-first-quarter","tag-game","tag-high-powered-fever","tag-indiana","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-point","tag-second-quarter","tag-spark","tag-sparks","tag-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}