Opponent Paige Buckers got a lot of cheers on Sparks home court, but Kelsey Plum get the biggest one with game-winner over Dallas.
At times Tuesday night, it seemed as though the Sparks had six players on the floor.
The first five donned the Sparks’ purple and gold. The sixth, though, answered to another playbook.
Paige Bueckers drew ovations fit for a home star. With swaths of fans flaunting her face on a T-shirt and spilling over railings for autographs pregame, the Wings rookie rode that backing into a career-high 44 points — only for the Sparks to prevail, 81-80.
The Sparks wobbled, faltered and nearly gave it all away — but then came the veteran, Kelsey Plum.
On a night when defenders draped over the Sparks veteran at nearly every turn, Plum’s path to the rim felt crowded all game. And when she turned to the officials for relief, it seemed the whistles she sought often stayed silent.
But when it mattered most — that being with 3.3 seconds on the clock and the Sparks trailing by one — Plum lowered her shoulder and slipped between arms that swiped and bodies that lunged.
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One defender stumbled to a misstep, another was left trailing her hip and Plum never broke stride, soaring into the paint to bank the ball through the net at the buzzer. The red light spilled across the backboard, sounding just late enough to certify her bucket and help her team escape.
Plum’s teammates mobbed her at center court.
The Sparks (17-18) entered Tuesday’s affair with a blueprint for Bueckers — coach Lynne Roberts recognizing pregame that “we let Paige get to the middle which is what she wants to do,” in reference to Bueckers’ then-career-high 29-point performance last Friday against her Sparks.
But every Sparks adjustment seemed futile. Double-team her high, and she threaded the ball to cutters. Leave her one-on-one, and she buried mid-range jumpers with a composure that belied her rookie tag.
But across the court from the rookie were two Sparks familiar with that label.
They came from the 2024 draft. The haul came in Cameron Brink at No. 2 and Rickea Jackson at No. 4. Their pairing never had the chance to fully bloom last year, Brink suffering a season-ending injury just a month in.
A year later, with Brink healthy and Jackson entrenched in the starting lineup, the Sparks finally cashed in on their draft night selections. On Tuesday, the sophomores saved their team from a five-minute scoring drought to open proceedings against the Wings, spurring a 15-5 spree that stifled the the noise that followed Bueckers.
The cheers for the rookie were loud, but the final word — and the final bucket — belonged to L.A.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Category: General Sports
