{"id":706756,"date":"2026-06-16T04:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/706756\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T04:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:20:15","slug":"valkyries-instant-analysis-golden-state-suffocates-sparks-in-dominant-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/706756\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries instant analysis: Golden State suffocates Sparks in dominant win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Los Angeles <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/stats\/_\/view\/team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sparks<\/a> entered Monday\u2019s game with one of the most electric offenses in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Behind the WNBA\u2019s leading scorer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/stats\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kelsey Plum<\/a>, bonafide star Nneka Ogwumike and All-Star Dearica Hamby, the Sparks have averaged just over 90 points a night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But on Monday, the Valkyries made the Sparks\u2019 first trip to the Bay Area a living nightmare.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/sports\/wnba\/golden-state-valkyries\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valkyries<\/a> won their third straight game, defeating the Sparks 78-58 behind a suffocating defensive performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Plum, who averages 26.6 points per game, was held to nine points on 3-for-10 shooting from the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Sparks shot 33% from the field and hit just three of their 21 3-point attempts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gabby Williams led the Valkyries with 16 points and four rebounds. Kaila Charles added 13 points in 21 minutes off the bench. Veronica Burton finished with 12 points.<\/p>\n<p>Rae Burrell led the Sparks with 13 points.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State led by as much as 24 as it cruised to a win and improved to 9-5.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Valkyries made a point to not let the Sparks get going early.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Golden State built a 15-point first-quarter lead by forcing the Sparks into multiple contested, late clock jumpers. Los Angeles shot 3-for-16 through the first 10 minutes and had just 10 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the second quarter, the Valkyries used a 10-0 run to take a 45-26 lead at halftime.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles made a small run in the third, outscoring the Valkyries 21-16. But the Valkyries\u2019 lead was just too big to overcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Valkyries forced Plum to foul out at the 4:25 mark of the fourth quarter, effectively ending the Sparks night.<\/p>\n<p>Charles produces off the bench<\/p>\n<p>Charles has seen her minutes get cut since she was taken out of the starting lineup for Cecilia Zandalasini.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But on Monday night, she turned in her best game of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The former Maryland standout hit 5-of-7 of her shots from the field, including knocking down 2-of-3 3-point attempts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She finished the game with a plus-minus rating of +13.<\/p>\n<p>Kate Martin returns<\/p>\n<p>In her first game back since being waived by the Valkyries, the former Iowa standout played 11 minutes and was a solid contributor on defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She hit a 3-pointer in the third quarter to cut the Valkyries\u2019 lead to 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Los Angeles Sparks entered Monday\u2019s game with one of the most electric offenses in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[2356,14059,5415,36930,10834,10835,47689,7234,10841,10842,5414,99,434],"class_list":["post-706756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-california","tag-lake-county","tag-marin-county","tag-mendocino-county","tag-monterey-county","tag-napa-county","tag-north-coast","tag-northern-california","tag-santa-cruz-county","tag-solano-county","tag-sonoma-county","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706756","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=706756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}