The Sparks were expected to turn a corner this season.<\/p>\n
Through nine games, it\u2019s been more of the same frustration and Tuesday\u2019s 79-69 loss<\/a> to the Las Vegas Aces might have been a gut check.<\/p>\n The Sparks<\/a> trailed by as much as 15 in the second half and came back to trail by five with less than three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, but it wasn\u2019t nearly enough after a 30.8% shooting night. It was the fewest they have scored in a game since Aug. 9 of last season when they scored 59 points.<\/p>\n Rae Burrell netted a career-high 22 points, but head coach Lynne Roberts was unhappy with the offense overall.<\/p>\n \u201cShooting 30% it\u2019s going to be tough to win this league,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cShot quality is a direct correlation to your shooting percentage. We take great shots, we\u2019re going to shoot better than 30%. How do you get great shots? You execute, and you\u2019re in the spots you\u2019re supposed to be in, and you run what you\u2019re supposed to be running.\u201d<\/p>\n Burrell also appeared to twist her ankle after the buzzer, but Roberts didn\u2019t have any update on her after the game.<\/p>\n The Sparks were coming off an 84-81 loss to league-worst Connecticut on Sunday.<\/p>\n Last time the Sparks faced the Aces on May 23, they went into Las Vegas and scored 29 points in the fourth quarter for a tremendous road win, powered by Kelsey Plum.<\/p>\n But Plum, who leads the WNBA with 26.8 points per game, is still out with a right ankle sprain<\/a>, and the Sparks (4-5<\/a>) offense suffered for it. Other than Burrell\u2019s scoring, the rest of the Sparks offense combined to shoot 12-for-51.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not lose sight of the fact that KP really is the head of the snake in terms of the system, and we don\u2019t have her,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWhich we can\u2019t just say, \u2018Oh, we don\u2019t have KP\u2019\u2026 We really need to execute, therefore we really need to be in the right spots, therefore we really got to set those screens right. It\u2019s not therefore a bummer, no, that\u2019s part of it. It\u2019s the W, you\u2019re going to have people out and therefore you\u2019ve got to execute, be on the same page with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Plum missed her fourth consecutive game since injuring her right ankle in practice. She participated in shootaround Tuesday and Roberts said she was day-to-day.<\/p>\n The Sparks also entered the night with the league\u2019s worst defense. It\u2019s always going to be difficult to stop A\u2019ja Wilson (25 points), but the Sparks had few answers for Jackie Young (16 points, nine assists) who spaced out the Aces (6-3) offense.<\/p>\n It still was far from their worst defensive showing of the season, and mostly they couldn\u2019t claw their way back with a paltry 30.8% from the field. In fact, the Aces scored just 15 points in the fourth, giving the Sparks a window to come back, but they shot 29.4% in the quarter.<\/p>\n \u201cHolding Vegas to 79 at home, we\u2019ve got to win, right?\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be better offensively and we\u2019re going rogue, sometimes we\u2019re not executing and it\u2019s inexcusable, we\u2019ve got to be better, but defensively, I thought we were in gaps\u2026 A\u2019ja had 25 (points) and 15 (rebounds), and even still, we held them to 79. We\u2019ve got to put a game together, both ends of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n The Aces were also shorthanded, without Dana Evans, Jewel Loyd and Chennedy Carter, who is second on the Aces in scoring despite coming off the bench. That forced the Aces to run some sets with Wilson at small forward and a much-larger front court in front of her before NaLyssa Smith ran into foul trouble.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to have, we have to have an understanding of our roles on the offensive end, and tonight we definitely did not show that,\u201d said Nneka Ogwumike (12 points). \u201cThe fight was there, but we have to give that fight some type of framework.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sparks forwards struggled, with Dearica Hamby, Ogwumike and Cameron Brink combining to shoot six-for-27, including an 0-for-7 night from Hamby.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not often that you have a coach that you know will take that amount of responsibility on a game that obviously we were out there playing,\u201d Ogwumike said. \u201cSo I just want to play harder, I want to be able to to bring to life what it is that she\u2019s that this system that she has for us that we\u2019ve seen work this season.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sparks next host Dallas (6-3) on Friday night looking to avoid a three-game losing streak. It\u2019s still early in the season and there is time to turn things around, and Plum seems close to returning, but the lack of an identity without their star is a concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sparks were expected to turn a corner this season. Through nine games, it\u2019s been more of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96878,16945,423,130069,48,52,51,130014,3376,47,50,49,3289,1869,18035,1417,126714,27176,19178,87217,53199],"class_list":["post-344357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-aces","tag-fourth-quarter","tag-game","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-last-season","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-night","tag-offense","tag-point","tag-rae-burrell","tag-right-ankle-sprain","tag-scoring","tag-sparks","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344357","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=344357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}