At the halftime break of Sunday’s game between the Los Angeles Sparks and Portland Fire, LA was in trouble.
They were trailing by two at home, and an 0-3 start to the Commissioner’s Cup for the purple and gold seemed much more on the table than a blowout win.
However, the Sparks turned things up a notch, particularly on the defensive end, and turned a close contest into an easy victory, beating the expansion Fire 89-72.
“I think defensively giving up 12 points in that 3rd quarter and 29 in the 2nd half, we did the things we’re supposed to do,” Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts said postgame. “I was proud of the effort defensively.”
It took a coalition of the willing for the Sparks to become a defensive juggernaut in the second half.
Gone were the backdoor cuts that allowed the Fire to dominate inside the paint. Portland also couldn’t get open looks from 3, and when they did, they failed to knock them down, going 0-for-5 from deep in the third quarter.
Erica Wheeler was taking care of business as a perimeter defender. She forced turnovers that led to easy buckets for LA. Her defense was so good that the Sparks outscored the Fire by 22 points in her second-half minutes, despite her scoring zero points.
Add in a pair of blocks from Kate Martin, and that’s how a two-point deficit becomes a double-digit victory.
Here’s how Nneka Ogwumike explained it:
We were motivated. We were playing for each other, we were playing with each other, and, defense, you know, offense is offense, but defense is really where it’s at. And today, I think we did a really good job of not leaving any gas in the tank on the defensive end.
The Sparks have had enough offense this season to be a playoff-caliber team. Entering Sunday’s contest, they had an offensive rating of 108.7, fifth-best in the WNBA. But when you factor in their worst-in-the-league defensive rating of 111.8, that’s how you get a team that’s floundering in mediocrity.
This second-half performance by Los Angeles is proof that they have enough defense to earn the results they need. When the defense is on a string, rotations are sharp and rebounding is present, the Sparks can start stacking wins.
After the game, Roberts expressed optimism that her team could build on their strong defensive showing:
You get rewarded from winning… when we focus on the discipline to do the little things for each other, that’s how you build trust out there as a unit, and then that just kind of has a snowball effect. So it’s not going to be different playing Seattle in terms of we’re going to have a game plan that’s well thought out and it’s us choosing to do it for 40 minutes.
Now the Sparks just have to do this consistently. They have the personnel. Ogwumike is an All-Defense player, Areil Atkins is a strong backcourt defender, and Cameron Brink can protect the rim as well as anyone.
It’s actions over words in the game of basketball, so we’ll see in the games to come if this is a turning point of the season for the Sparks defensively, or if it’s just a one-off event.
LA aficionados are most certainly hoping it’s the former.
