While Kelsey Plum was out with an ankle injury for the past week, Sparks coach Lynne Roberts called her the “head of the snake” of the team’s offense.
Plum, who entered the night leading the WNBA in scoring, netted 27 points but couldn’t save the Sparks from a fourth-quarter collapse and a 104-96 loss to the Dallas Wings at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night.
The Sparks’ offense looked better, but it had no answers for the three-headed attack of Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers and Jessica Shepherd, who spearheaded the Wings’ 63% shooting effort in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
The Sparks have lost three consecutive games for the first time since last June. They lost to Connecticut on May 30 before a poor offensive outing against Las Vegas on Tuesday. With Plum, they eclipsed their 69-point total from that game by midway through the third quarter Friday.
But Dallas’ offense was too much for the WNBA’s worst defense.
Read more:‘Framework’ isn’t there as poor shooting sinks Sparks in loss to Aces
The Sparks led by as much as nine in the second quarter but surrendered the lead late in the quarter as the Wings shot 55% to cut the lead to one by halftime.
The Sparks led 78-77 going into the fourth after a back-and-forth third quarter, but Dallas went on a 15-5 run to lead by eight. It was the only cold quarter for the Sparks, who scored just 18 points, with more than half of their offense coming from Plum.
It was a two-point game with under two minutes to play when Ogunbowale collected a rebound off her own shot to give the Wings a two-possession lead before Plum missed a three-pointer and a free throw.
Nneka Ogwumike notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Ariel Atkins scored 16 points.
Ogunbowale scored a game-high 30 points while Bueckers posted a career-high 14 assists and Shepherd had 22 points and 15 rebounds.
Wings guard Odyssey Sims left the court in a wheelchair in the second quarter after she twisted her left ankle coming down from a rebound attempt; she didn’t return. In the fourth, Aziaha James had to be carried off by her teammates after she got hit hard by an Ogwumike screen.
The Sparks will host the expansion Portland Fire (6-6) on Sunday, who lost a tight game against Phoenix on Friday night.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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