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<p>While Kelsey Plum was out with an ankle injury for the past week, Sparks coach Lynne Roberts called her the &#8220;head of the snake&#8221; of the team&#8217;s offense.</p>
<p>Plum, who entered the night leading the WNBA in scoring, netted 27 points but couldn&#8217;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.</p>
<p>The Sparks&#8217; 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&#8217; 63% shooting effort in the fourth quarter to seal the win.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But Dallas&#8217; offense was too much for the WNBA&#8217;s worst defense.</p>
<p><b>Read more:</b><a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/sparks/story/2026-06-02/los-angeles-sparks-las-vegas-aces-wnba-game-recap?utm_source=yahoo&;utm_medium=promo_module&;utm_campaign=rss_feed">&#8216;Framework&#8217; isn&#8217;t there as poor shooting sinks Sparks in loss to Aces</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Nneka Ogwumike notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Ariel Atkins scored 16 points.</p>
<p>Ogunbowale scored a game-high 30 points while Bueckers posted a career-high 14 assists and Shepherd had 22 points and 15 rebounds.</p>
<p>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&#8217;t return. In the fourth, Aziaha James had to be carried off by her teammates after she got hit hard by an Ogwumike screen.</p>
<p>The Sparks will host the expansion Portland Fire (6-6) on Sunday, who lost a tight game against Phoenix on Friday night.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/newsletters/sports-report?utm_source=yahoo&;utm_medium=newsletter_module&;utm_campaign=the-sports-report">Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.</a></p>
<p>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/sparks/story/2026-06-05/los-angeles-sparks-dallas-wings-kelsey-plum-wnba">Los Angeles Times</a>.</p>

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