The Sparks will look to defeat the Dallas Wings for the third time in 12 days when the teams reconvene in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon.
The Sparks (6-7) posted a 79-61 victory in Dallas on June 14 and overcame a 17-point deficit in a 76-74 win in Los Angeles on Friday.
Nneka Ogwumike scored 20 points in each of those contests and added seven rebounds on Friday to help the Sparks snap a three-game losing skid.
“Just grit, tenacity, toughness, togetherness,” Ogwumike said following Friday’s comeback victory. “I think our team was very connected and we were just having fun. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we’re the L.A. Sparks and we know people expect wins, ourselves included. We felt that the last few games and, this game, the goal was to go in there and three words: enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. So, we were enjoying the grind.”
Destanni Henderson contributed a career-high 18 points and Jordin Canada matched that total after sinking two free throws with 54.1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.
Dearica Hamby, who scored a team-high 23 points in Dallas on June 14, was held to just two points on 1-of-6 shooting from the floor in the rematch.
Natasha Howard collected 23 points and 12 rebounds on Friday and Arike Ogunbowale added 16 points for the Wings (6-7), who fell to 1-5 on the road this season.
Dallas eschewed calling a timeout in the waning moments of the game and settled for Crystal Dangerfield’s floating jump shot at the buzzer, which did not fall.
“Instead of giving them an opportunity to set up and talk about what we do in the last seconds — just like I know they are going to go with Nneka on theirs — I thought we would just roll with it,” Wings coach Latricia Trammell said.
Satou Sabally recorded 14 points and 13 rebounds in the first encounter with the Sparks and added 13 and 11, respectively, in the rematch. She has posted eight double-doubles in her past 10 games overall.
Kalani Brown scored a career-high 21 points and added 11 rebounds for Dallas in the first meeting between the teams.
–Field Level Media
