ARLINGTON, TX — It’s usually safe to expect fireworks when the Dallas Wings (17-8) square off against the Los Angeles Sparks (10-15), and they erupted late on Sunday once again, despite the Sparks being without Kelsey Plum, the WNBA’s second-leading scorer.
In Plum’s absence, the Sparks couldn’t manufacture enough offense to stay with the Wings down the stretch at College Park Center. Bueckers led the Wings with 25 points no 10-of-18 shooting and five assists in Dallas’ 90-82 win, but was knocked
out of the game by a collision with Nneka Ogwumike with 3:33 left to play, when she hit her head on the hardwood. Arike Ogunbowale scored five of her 20 points in the game’s final minute to help preserve the win in Bueckers’ absence. Ogwumike led the Sparks with 17 points in the win.
The Wings now hold a six-game winning streak, the longest in team history since moving to Dallas in 2016.
The Wings weren’t firing on all cylinders in the first quarter, though, until Azzi Fudd came off a screen on an inbound play for her first 3-pointer of the game, then curled off another screen the next time down six minutes into the game for her second, which put Dallas up 15-8. After the Sparks missed their first five 3-point attempts to open the game, Chance Grey responded with one of her own after Fudd’s second to make it 15-11.
Back-to-back three-point plays from Odyssey Sims and Aziaha James late in the first gave the Wings a 25-17 lead, and Paige Bueckers nailed a baseline jumper with just seconds left in the frame to give Dallas a 27-17 advantage after one.
Awak Kuier picked up her third foul of the game with 8:05 left in the second quarter, and with the Wings already without Alanna Smith due to a leg injury, that meant extended minutes for Alysha Clark beside Jessica Shepard. Arike Ogunbowale bailed the Wings out on a couple of possessions midway through the second when she banked home a 3-pointer from the left wing, then drove through traffic in the lane for a tough two the next time down to give Dallas a 34-27 lead.
Bueckers put Ariel Atkins on skates with 4:30 left in the half and stepped back for her first 3-ball of the game, then completed the four-point play to give the Wings a 40-29 lead when Atkins got into her landing space on the way down. Bueckers led Dallas with 12 points and three assists in the first half, but the Wings turned the ball over four times in the last five minutes of the first half and limped into the locker room with a 46-40 lead.
Dallas turned the ball over three more times in the first four minutes of the third, as Los Angeles cut the Wings’ lead to one, 50-49, after Rae Burrell’s driving reverse layup three minutes into the second half. Kuier picked up her fourth foul, a transition take foul, early in the third, forcing the Wings to once again go smaller. The Sparks took their first lead of the game, 53-52, on another Burrell drive, this time past Fudd, two minutes later.
The Wings got the wheels back on the bus in the final minutes of the third quarter and took a 68-63 lead into the decisive fourth quarter.
Play with your food
Without Plum in the lineup, Sunday’s game was an opportunity to put away a struggling team and rest some key players on the front end of the back-to-back set of games thrust upon the Wings when the New York Liberty’s plane had trouble leaving town on Thursday.
The Sparks came into Sunday’s game having lost their last three and six of their last eight. Plum was injured her left leg in late June and was expected to be reevaluated after four weeks.
The Wings compounded their mistake late in the first half by letting the Sparks come out of halftime as the clear aggressors. But throughout the afternoon, the Wings limited the Sparks’ effectiveness from the perimeter enough to offset LA’s advantages underneath.
Inside track
The Sparks stuck around in large part due to their matchup advantages on the interior. Nneka Ogwumike, Cameron Brink and Dearica Hamby used the screen game to get a guard switched onto them, then forced them into the post, where Los Angeles was able to score easy buckets or get to the free throw line.
Wings head coach Jose Fernandez opted for Clark and a smaller lineup when Kuier got into foul trouble, until he finally put Li Yueru into the game late in the third quarter. She played the pick-and-roll game perfectly with Fudd late in the third quarter, earning a trip to the line and a three-point play with 1:40 left to extend what was then a 64-58 lead.
Cameron Brink swatted a pair of shots, including a driving attempt from Bueckers, and nailed a 3-pointer as Yueru was slow to get out on her, in the final minute of the third quarter, to cut it to 64-61.
Clutch Paige
Bueckers made her first clutch play of the game before the fourth quarter even started. She knew, with just seconds left in the third, that if she could just get Brink up in the air after a switch, she could get to the free throw line with a second or less on the clock. She threw a pump fake and leaned in to extend Dallas’ lead to five points headed into a hotly contested fourth quarter.
Then Bueckers put her fourth-quarter game face on. She pulled up for her second 3-pointer of the game just a minute into the frame to put her at 19 points for the game and give the Wings a 71-63 advantage. Two minutes later, she flashed down the lane after Fudd pulled down an offensive rebound, and Shepard found her on the cut for another bucket to make it 74-68. She used a Yueru screen with six minutes left to play to slide past Brink, who had blocked her shot on a similar drive earlier, for a fading bucket to make it 78-72 and force a Sparks timeout.
Bueckers came off another Yueru screen with 4:45 left and pulled up for another perimeter jumper to keep the Sparks at arm’s length, 80-74. Those were her eighth and ninth points of the fourth quarter.
Clutch teammates
Bueckers had to be taken to the locker room after hitting her head on the hardwood following a car crash with Ogwumike with 3:33 left to play. Her teammates immediately picked up the slack, after Bueckers’ shooting and craftiness steadied the ship earlier in the fourth.
Shepard took a steal on a bad pass from Burrell and found Sims for a transition basket with 3:08 to play. After Atkins hit a 3-ball for LA on the other end, Shepard came right back and drove for another bucket to put the Wings ahead 86-79 with 1:59 left.
Ogunbowale stepped back with Brink’s hand in her face as the seconds ticked down and sunk a long clutch two-pointer to make it 88-82, before driving for another bucket with 20 seconds left to give Dallas a 90-82 lead.
