{"id":388995,"date":"2026-07-07T08:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388995\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T08:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:56:18","slug":"listless-sparks-are-routed-by-flaujae-johnson-and-the-seattle-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388995\/","title":{"rendered":"Listless Sparks are routed by Flau’jae Johnson and the Seattle Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Forty-nine seconds. That\u2019s all it took for the Seattle Storm\u2019s Flau\u2019jae Johnson to fire off a 27-foot three-point jumper to take the lead. In less than a minute, she sank the Sparks\u2019 hopes of beating one of the worst teams in the WNBA, leaving 39 more minutes for the Sparks<\/a> to consider just how the team got there.<\/p>\n

Johnson, already the main act in Seattle, bolstered her WNBA Rookie of the Year case by scoring 23 points as the Storm defeated the Sparks 82-64 Monday night at Crypto.com Arena<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Each time the Storm drove down the court, there was Johnson, her ponytail fluttering as she skirted around the arc before driving into the paint, nonchalantly tossing up layups as if it was still shootaround. Not even the relentless defense chants summoned from the Sparks\u2019 MCs stopped her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d coach Lynne Roberts said after the game. \u201cWe just weren\u2019t good offensively.\u201d <\/p>\n

And while her teammates supplied Johnson with enough passes to at one point secure a 13-point lead, the Sparks (8-11<\/a>) lost because the team couldn\u2019t build enough momentum.<\/p>\n

In the end, Seattle outmaneuvered and outbodied the Sparks, snatching steals and flipping the ball around the perimeter until the Storm fired off a shot. Even when the ball bounced off the rim or backboard, Johnson or Storm center Dominique Malonga, who had nine rebounds, was there, hoisting the basketball away from the closest white jersey.<\/p>\n

When asked how the team could\u2019ve compensated defensively, Dearica Hamby kept it short: \u201cStop them from scoring.\u201d <\/p>\n

In comparison, the Sparks, without an offensive rebound until the end of the third quarter, were forced to make perfect shots, though that was far from the team\u2019s grasp. Hamby, who went six for nine, led the team with 17 points, but even she couldn\u2019t go toe-to-toe with Johnson alone. Worse, the Sparks\u2019 abysmal 17.2 three-point percentage all but abandoned that avenue of attack, leaving the team to face Malonga in the paint.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to let us off the hook at all, but sometimes you just have nights like that, and we all had them at the same time,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cShooting 17% from three doesn\u2019t help.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Sparks struggled to transition to the basket, giving up 19 turnovers resulting in 25 free baskets. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that there is a strong line of playing in transition,\u201d Nneka Ogwumike said. \u201cSometimes we attribute taking an early shot to transition when in reality, if you\u2019re taking an early, contested shot in transition, it\u2019s probably not the most ideal shot.\u201d <\/p>\n

So as the Sparks fell further behind, the holes left by the injured Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum widened.<\/p>\n

In the Sparks\u2019 previous matchup against the Storm a month ago, the two had totaled 34 points in the nail-biting 88-83 win. But in Monday\u2019s game, the Sparks could only cling to the game with clenched fists as the gap widened.<\/p>\n

\u201cCredit them,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThey played hard and made shots. We missed them.\u201d <\/p>\n

By the end, the Sparks spent the game playing catch-up, never regaining the lead after surrendering it in the first 49 seconds to Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forty-nine seconds. That\u2019s all it took for the Seattle Storm\u2019s Flau\u2019jae Johnson to fire off a 27-foot three-point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156793,116044,4472,6223,423,18654,48,52,51,5814,156792,47,50,49,5463,61581,1417,7556,115831,5250,53199],"class_list":["post-388995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-backboard","tag-bad-team","tag-ball","tag-end","tag-game","tag-johnson","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lead","tag-listless-sparks","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-minute","tag-paint","tag-point","tag-rebound","tag-seattle-storm","tag-shot","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388995","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=388995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}