The Sparks were expected to turn a corner this season.
Through nine games, it’s been more of the same frustration and Tuesday’s 79-69 loss to the Las Vegas Aces might have been a gut check.
The Sparks trailed by as much as 15 in the second half and came back to trail by five with less than three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t nearly enough after a 30.8% shooting night. It was the fewest they have scored in a game since Aug. 9 of last season when they scored 59 points.
Rae Burrell netted a career-high 22 points, but head coach Lynne Roberts was unhappy with the offense overall.
“Shooting 30% it’s going to be tough to win this league,” Roberts said. “Shot quality is a direct correlation to your shooting percentage. We take great shots, we’re going to shoot better than 30%. How do you get great shots? You execute, and you’re in the spots you’re supposed to be in, and you run what you’re supposed to be running.”
Burrell also appeared to twist her ankle after the buzzer, but Roberts didn’t have any update on her after the game.
The Sparks were coming off an 84-81 loss to league-worst Connecticut on Sunday.
Last time the Sparks faced the Aces on May 23, they went into Las Vegas and scored 29 points in the fourth quarter for a tremendous road win, powered by Kelsey Plum.
But Plum, who leads the WNBA with 26.8 points per game, is still out with a right ankle sprain, and the Sparks (4-5) offense suffered for it. Other than Burrell’s scoring, the rest of the Sparks offense combined to shoot 12-for-51.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that KP really is the head of the snake in terms of the system, and we don’t have her,” Roberts said. “Which we can’t just say, ‘Oh, we don’t have KP’… We really need to execute, therefore we really need to be in the right spots, therefore we really got to set those screens right. It’s not therefore a bummer, no, that’s part of it. It’s the W, you’re going to have people out and therefore you’ve got to execute, be on the same page with everybody.”
Plum missed her fourth consecutive game since injuring her right ankle in practice. She participated in shootaround Tuesday and Roberts said she was day-to-day.
The Sparks also entered the night with the league’s worst defense. It’s always going to be difficult to stop A’ja Wilson (25 points), but the Sparks had few answers for Jackie Young (16 points, nine assists) who spaced out the Aces (6-3) offense.
It still was far from their worst defensive showing of the season, and mostly they couldn’t claw their way back with a paltry 30.8% from the field. In fact, the Aces scored just 15 points in the fourth, giving the Sparks a window to come back, but they shot 29.4% in the quarter.
“Holding Vegas to 79 at home, we’ve got to win, right?” Roberts said. “We’ve got to be better offensively and we’re going rogue, sometimes we’re not executing and it’s inexcusable, we’ve got to be better, but defensively, I thought we were in gaps… A’ja had 25 (points) and 15 (rebounds), and even still, we held them to 79. We’ve got to put a game together, both ends of the floor.”
The Aces were also shorthanded, without Dana Evans, Jewel Loyd and Chennedy Carter, who is second on the Aces in scoring despite coming off the bench. That forced the Aces to run some sets with Wilson at small forward and a much-larger front court in front of her before NaLyssa Smith ran into foul trouble.
“We have to have, we have to have an understanding of our roles on the offensive end, and tonight we definitely did not show that,” said Nneka Ogwumike (12 points). “The fight was there, but we have to give that fight some type of framework.”
The Sparks forwards struggled, with Dearica Hamby, Ogwumike and Cameron Brink combining to shoot six-for-27, including an 0-for-7 night from Hamby.
“It’s not often that you have a coach that you know will take that amount of responsibility on a game that obviously we were out there playing,” Ogwumike said. “So I just want to play harder, I want to be able to to bring to life what it is that she’s that this system that she has for us that we’ve seen work this season.”
The Sparks next host Dallas (6-3) on Friday night looking to avoid a three-game losing streak. It’s still early in the season and there is time to turn things around, and Plum seems close to returning, but the lack of an identity without their star is a concern.
