After fast start, Sparks fall to league-leading Lynx at home

For almost four magical minutes in the first quarter, an upheaval of the best team in the WNBA seemed to be frightening.

What seemed more scary, perhaps, is that the damage team spent most of the season fighting to get out of the league cellar.

During these 3 minutes and 59 seconds, the sparks shook 16 consecutive points while Crypto.com Arena turned into a animated basketball and musical show. The children of almost all the sections of the House of the Sparks hit their sieve as the war drums while tiny voices upset the songs of “SpongeBob Squarepant, S” “Moana” and “Frozen”.

It was a mini-Disneyland inside the Sparks building on children’s day, the whole bowl pulsating with cries, slaps and sugar. For an ephemeral section, it looked like an exhilarating return in the mid -2010s.

However, as quickly as magic appeared, it disappeared. So suddenly, and so radically, the most recent “happiest place on earth” has lost its mirror, replaced by crossed reversals, limited looks on the rim and deflation of the momentum while the Lynx (18-3) steam at a 91-82 victory on sparks (6-14) Thursday afternoon.

“You give the best team of the easy running Layups League,” said goalkeeper Kelsey Plum, as regards the lynx collecting 22 additional shooting attempts that sparks, “it was difficult. We have laid a hole.”

This was a sequence of 16-0 to build an advance of 18-7 in the first quarter turned out to be the only luminous point in the middle of another minute. Not only for players, but for children with their sieve who had fewer and fewer reasons to make noise.

Lynx goalkeeper Alanna Smith derived in the space open at the top of the key to score first with a three for the lynx. Following a float without appointment from Napheesa Collier, Smith propelled his team to an advance at the beginning of 7-2 after collecting an entrance pass and turned in a float on the block.

Smith’s early rhythm and precision hinted why the lynx had only three defeats all season. But the control they held in these evaporated opening moments, the momentum being painted purple and yellow.

The 16 -point show started in an unexpected territory. Plum turned on the fuse beyond the arc. The Julie German guard has followed suit during the next trip below. Then striker Rickea Jackson made an overview of the basic line. And it was three in three consecutive possessions for a team that does not earn their life at a distance.

“The ball was moving, there was a zip in the first quarter,” said Sparks coach Lynne Roberts. “Thirteen three to 48% – Vanloo [guard Julie Vanloo] really help this. We lacked this kind of shooter-the kick and the dribbling, “she added, referring to the five three points of Vanloo.

However, the score unbalanced halfway through the opening quarter had a short lifespan.

What looked like a cushion turned into a trap. After their race 16-0, the sparks released and the lynx jumped. The Minnesota feasted on sloppy cross passes, transforming high-end gifts into easy-up lay-ups in transition and has made their way to return to four by the neighborhood.

The lynx has erased the “deficit” of their dictionary – and almost everything, from the game book of Sparks. Fucked by nine reversals of Los Angeles in the second quarter, Minnesota made 11 baskets-almost as much as the sparks had drawn attempts for an advance of 50-40 at halftime.

“”[Missing] Photos that you do not normally think of missing – it can simply exert a lot of pressure on your offense when you get an execution, “said Roberts.” But we must be better defensively, abandoning 91 – but they are really good in everything you do, which is wrong. »»

Four minutes in the driver’s seat gave way to the wheels entirely detached during the two remaining periods. The reversals are mounted and the layups followed while more than a quarter of the minnesota points came out of the errors.

The lynx fled to the third trimester, filing 30 points – 11 more than sparks – to stretch their advance at 80-59. The Sparks launched punches in the fourth and Vanloo caught fire, but the damage was too much for recovery.

Plum finished with 17 points and a summit of 12 assists to lead the sparks. Jackson added 14 points while Dererica Hamby contributed 12 points and a summit of seven rebounds.

Natisha Hiedeman came out of the bench to lead the lynx with 18 points, while necklace finished with 17 points and a top of eight rebounds. Courtney Williams collected 16 points and a summit of seven assists while Smith scored 15.