88-83 road win against the Phoenix Mercury<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday night. Hamby had a game-high 25 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Forward Rae Burrell added a career-high 20 points off the bench.<\/p>\n\u201cWe were trying to make the playoffs and we knew we needed the game,\u201d Burrell said. \u201cI\u2019m always trying to come in and do whatever the team needs me to do and be that energy shifter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sparks, who began the season with a 5-13 record, were eliminated from playoff contention when the Seattle Storm held off the Golden State Valkyries, 74-73, on Tuesday to claim the WNBA\u2019s eighth and final postseason berth.<\/p>\n
The Sparks can still finish the season with a .500 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe league is as good as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d first-year Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a year in the history that 21 wins doesn\u2019t get you in the playoffs \u2013 21 wins in a league that is just competitive from top to bottom. I\u2019m proud of our team for sticking together and sticking with me. They\u2019ve bought in, and they\u2019re playing their tails off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are things we could have done better? [Hamby] pointed at it, there\u2019s some games I\u2019d love to have back,\u201d Roberts added. \u201cBut that\u2019s the way it works, and what you learn from that is you can\u2019t just think, \u2018Oh, it\u2019ll be fine, it\u2019s no big deal, it\u2019s June.\u2019 Those games matter. And we will learn from that, and that will be put in our pocket for next season, when we\u2019re feeling a little whatever, like we\u2019ve got to find a way to win those games we\u2019re supposed to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s 174 things that I\u2019m sure that I\u2019ll look back on and want to do better. But right now, I\u2019m just proud of this group, and what we have achieved, and one more game.\u201d<\/p>\n
For that final game, the Aces (29-14) are currently on a 15-game winning streak, led by three-time league MVP A\u2019ja Wilson, who is averaging 23.4 points, 9.9 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots. Las Vegas still has a lot to play for, including the No. 2 overall seed in the upcoming playoffs.<\/p>\n
LAS VEGAS ACES (29-14) AT SPARKS (21-22)<\/p>\n
When: Thursday, 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Where:\u00a0Crypto.com Arena<\/p>\n
TV: Spectrum SportsNet, NBA TV<\/p>\n
Originally Published: September 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Sparks have been eliminated from playoff contention for a fifth consecutive season, but forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[2356,23758,3031,13489,3029,99,434],"class_list":["post-148223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-california","tag-la-sparks","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}