LOS ANGELES — This is what Sparks basketball is supposed to look like.
Players are cutting, the ball is moving, and when the 3-point shooters step up and fire away, the rim might as well look as big as a bathtub.
It is, admittedly, going to be a work in progress. Coach Lynne Roberts noted that before Sunday’s game with the winless Chicago Sky, when she said this:
“I do pride myself in being process driven, and we won eight games last year. It’s going to take time learning. (It’s) a results-driven industry and I accept that and I like that. But to get where we want to go, it’s not going to happen in a week because we want it to. We’ve got to continue building the right way and creating good habits and expectations, and we’ve been inconsistent in that, on the court when games happen, and that’s a learning process.”
But after a disappointing home loss Friday night to the new Golden State Valkyries dropped them to 1-3 for the young season, a win – any win, any style, against any opponent – seemed necessary to at least prop up the belief that good things might be on the horizon.
And so, after trading blows with Chicago for most of the first 23 minutes Sunday afternoon, the Sparks made a statement. A flurry of 3-pointers – seven in a little over four minutes, four of them by Kelsey Plum, including back-to-back-to-back treys – turned a tie game into a relatively comfortable 73-59 margin with 2:25 left in the period, en route to an 84-71 triumph in front of 11,422 in downtown L.A.
“I think what we’re trying to figure out and really be consistent with is the ball’s moving,” Roberts said. “Players are moving. We’re not taking forced shots. We’re hitting the open shooter. And I think that’s what you saw. The ball’s moving.
“And you know KP did a tremendous job. How many assists did she have? Eight. She gets so much attention. There’s so much pressure on her. She’s getting – you know, the defense is physical. But she did a great job today finding the open man. And if we continue to do that, then what are you gonna do defensively? If they’re not gonna help on her, she can score fitty.”
Yeah, the coach actually said “fitty.” (As in 50.)
“I like that you said that,” said Plum, sitting next to her coach in the interview room.
“Just trying to be like the young folk,” Roberts quipped. And yes, she did just come out of the college ranks, going from the University of Utah to the WNBA.
A day like Sunday – a third quarter like Sunday’s, to be precise – is great for morale. But the effect doesn’t last long, because the games are a lot more frequent in this league than they were in the Pac-12 or Big 12. The Sparks host Atlanta Tuesday. Friday, they play at Las Vegas, and two days after that, they’re home against Phoenix.
That saying about how life comes at you fast? When you’re a coach used to having practice time to instruct and perfect, a 44-game WNBA schedule with its travel demands and scheduling that often depends on a given arena’s open dates feels like the lightning round.
“It’s been a good transition for me from just a basketball standpoint,” Roberts said. “These players are better and they’re bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled. So you start off on a higher level with the things you can do.
“The adjustment for me is just not having really practice time. I think that’s the big adjustment and learning how to teach and how to make adjustments, how to add things, tweak things without really getting practice time. That’s been a learning curve for me.”
The first two seasons of Roberts’ 10-year tenure at Utah coincided with Plum’s final two seasons at the University of Washington, when she set the NCAA career scoring record that Caitlin Clark ultimately broke. In four games between the schools those two seasons, Plum averaged nearly 39 minutes and 35.5 points, including 57 in their final meeting in 2017, the night she broke the scoring record.
“It’s way more fun to coach her than to prepare for her,” Roberts said.
Plum’s stat line Sunday was expansive enough: 28 points, including 6 of 10 3-pointers, eight assists, and a plus-19. And there were a couple of scary moments, first when Plum came up flexing her right hand early in the third quarter, and then a few minutes later when she was popped in the nose in a collision with Kia Nurse – and was called for the foul.
And stayed in the game.
“My dad’s a (former) football player,” she said when asked about her toughness. “My brother played football growing up. My sisters are the two toughest human beings that I’ve ever met. So maybe being bullied as a kid just kind of gives you that resilience. But, I mean, I love to compete. I want to play. I want to win so bad, I hate losing. It makes me sick.”
She doesn’t really need additional motivation, but she received it Sunday. The crowd included former NBA players Matt Barnes and Lou Williams, current NBA star Kevin Durant, future Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Ram Aaron Donald … and one additional courtside fan who evidently considered it his duty to fire up the team’s newest star.
“There’s a guy, I think he was with L.A., but he was talking trash to me and that did get me going,” Plum said. “He was like, ‘come on.’ And I was like, ‘I been coming on, what’re you talking about?’ But he got me going. And then in the third quarter he’s like, see? See what I mean? I’m like, okay, you can take the credit for that.”
Not that she’ll need any extra firing up from one game to the next, but it probably wouldn’t hurt if she made sure the guy had a seat within earshot at future home games.
jalexander@scng.com
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