{"id":642944,"date":"2026-05-14T16:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642944\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T16:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T16:16:11","slug":"cameron-brinks-caitlin-clark-block-highlights-pivotal-night-for-sparks-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642944\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Brink’s Caitlin Clark block highlights pivotal night for Sparks star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cameron Brink’s Caitlin Clark block highlights pivotal night for Sparks star<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even in the early days of the 2026 season, the pressure<\/a> had been building on Cameron Brink<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Once viewed as the anchor of the Los Angeles<\/a>‘ Sparks<\/a> youth-driven turnaround, Brink has found herself in an unusual position ever since an ACL injury ended her rookie year prematurely in 2024.<\/p>\n

The Sparks chose to pump the brakes on their rebuild; in consecutive offseasons, Los Angeles brought in championship-winning All-Stars in Kelsey Plum<\/a> and Nneka Ogwumike<\/a> to speed up the rebuild. They started this season with a resounding 27-point loss to the Las Vegas Aces<\/a>, in which Brink played just eight minutes and had as many turnovers (three) as rebounds.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cameron Brink had one message for Caitlin Clark after viral block<\/a><\/p>\n

Brink responded on Wednesday. Though the Sparks lost their home opener to the Indiana Fever<\/a>, Brink grabbed the headlines with a viral swat of Caitlin Clark<\/a> late in the first quarter. It was just one part of an encouraging night overall for the player picked just behind Clark in the 2024 draft.<\/p>\n

Brink finished with 11 points in 19 minutes off the bench. She added five rebounds and three blocks as the Sparks launched a late rally to make things interesting at Crypto.com Arena, though Los Angeles eventually succumbed to an 87-78 defeat.<\/p>\n

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Postgame, Brink spoke about feeling “locked in” on defense and pointed to improved communication as a factor behind her return to form. She also told reporters that she maintained confidence even after such a rough outing against the defending champion Aces on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“My teammates aren’t gonna believe in me if I don’t believe in myself,” Brink said. “I’ve had a slow start, but I’m putting in the work and the coaches work with me every day. … I’m just gonna keep growing.”<\/p>\n

The Sparks surely hope that’s the case in Brink’s first fully-healthy season since she entered the W.<\/p>\n

More WNBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Brink’s Caitlin Clark block highlights pivotal night for Sparks star originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1760,5041,2839,10504,4677,3031,4385,23629,99,80663,434],"class_list":["post-642944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-cameron-brink","tag-indiana-fever","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-los-angeles","tag-nneka-ogwumike","tag-sparks","tag-sports","tag-the-sparks","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642944","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=642944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}