a convincing 105-84 home win over the Portland Fire<\/a> Sunday, which coincidentally locked the franchise into the sixth- and seventh-best lottery odds in the 2027 WNBA Draft, when USC star and Los Angeles native JuJu Watkins will be the presumed No. 1 pick if she declares.<\/p>\nOgwumike, an 11-time All-Star, became the fourth player in league history to score 8,000 career points. The Sparks\u2019 all-time leading scorer recorded her 18th double-double of the season, her most in a single season, and finished with 20 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, and two steals. Guard Rae Burrell also scored 20 points. Guard Ariel Atkins scored 14. Rookie guard Chance Gray scored a career-high 11. Veteran forward Emma Cannon, the team\u2019s elder stateswoman at 37, scored a season-high 10 points in the first half and started in place of interior stalwart Dearica Hamby and Cameron Brink, the team\u2019s primary post reserve, who were both out with injuries. Hamby, Brink and guard Aaliyah Nye could also miss Tuesday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
The Sparks bench against the Fire was comprised of five rookies, Gray, Tonie Morgan, Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda, Jihun Park, Shyanne Sellers, and second-year guard Monique Akoa Makani.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rookies and the newbies, they\u2019re all my little babies,\u201d Cannon said, \u201cand it\u2019s something about just competing every day, showing up and putting your best foot forward. That\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been trying to teach them and tell them that you\u2019re not going to get all the minutes, but you have to be ready when your number is called. So you definitely go out there every day, and you practice, and you play like you are a starter so that when your number is called, you go in and you compete, and you do the best you can do. So I\u2019m proud of them. This is just a stepping stone for them. This is their foundation. They\u2019re just getting their feet wet, so I\u2019m excited for their future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sparks shot 53.2% from the field on 33-of-62 attempts, 48.3% from beyond the arc (14 made 3s), and 86.2% from the free-throw line (25 of 29).<\/p>\n
Las Vegas (29-13) is coming off a 98-77 victory over the Seattle Storm on Sunday. Four-time MVP A\u2019ja Wilson scored a game-high 30 points. All-Star Jackie Young scored 23 points. Former Spark Chelsea Gray added 15 points.<\/p>\n
The Sparks will host the playoff-bound Golden State Valkyries in a season finale on Thursday, which will also serve as Ogwumike\u2019s retirement celebration and the 2016 championship anniversary night, the season when the No. 1 pick in the 2012 Draft was named the league\u2019s MVP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat last game is going to be a lot,\u201d Ogwumike explained. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about what I got going on, but we\u2019re also going to be celebrating the 10th anniversary of our championship, so I\u2019m very excited about that. It\u2019s probably going to be crazy. I have like 200 family and friends coming, so you guys will meet a lot of people, but I just want to stay grateful and present.\u201d<\/p>\n
SPARKS (16-26) AT LAS VEGAS (29-13)<\/p>\n
When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Where: Michelob ULTRA Arena, Las Vegas<\/p>\n
TV: ESPN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Nneka Ogwumike is not going down without a fight. Even though she\u2019s two games away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[2356,23758,3031,13489,3029,99,434],"class_list":["post-855861","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\/855861","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=855861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}