The Sparks lost their fourth consecutive game, falling to the last-place Fever, 74-72, on Tuesday in Indiana.
L.A. went scoreless over the final 3:05, a span during which the Sparks were outscored by eight points.
The Sparks entered Tuesday’s game at Indiana Farmers Coliseum in 10th place in the 12-team WNBA, but just a half-game out of eighth and playoff position. Now at 10-17, they have just five regular-season games remaining to try to make up ground, including Thursday’s game in Minnesota, which will be the final stop on a strenuous six-game road trip.
In a wild finish in Indiana, the Fever pulled ahead with 15.3 seconds left on a pair of Teaira McCowan free throws.
After the Sparks’ Nia Coffey (who scored 10 of her 13 points in the fourth quarter) missed a 3-point attempt with 4.6 seconds left, Brittney Sykes skied for an offensive rebound, wisely got up a shot and was hit in the process, drawing a foul.
But Sykes missed the first free throw and then purposefully misfired on the second before slipping in to snag her own rebound, but she missed the final flick at the buzzer, giving the Fever (6-19) their fifth victory in eight games following a 12-game losing streak.
L.A.’s losing streak now matches the four-game winning streak it built to start the second half of the season.
On Tuesday, the Sparks were again short-handed. L.A. played without Chiney Ogwumike (who was a game-time decision with a sore knee) and Kristi Toliver, who remains sidelined with a hand injury.
The Fever went forth without Danielle Robinson, a 9.9 points-per-game scorer who was out with a right ankle injury (9.9 points per game scorer).
McCowan finished with 15 points and a career-high-tying 19 rebounds – almost outrebounding the Sparks on her own. Overall, the Sparks were dominated on the boards, 39-20.
“The rebounding disparity was just too much,” said Ogwumike, who grabbed only one rebound but led the Sparks with 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting – eclipsing 4,500 career points in the process. “I know I gotta be better on that.”
L.A.’s bench kept them in the game, though, outsourcing the Fever 29-13 – boosted largely by Coffey and Lauren Cox, who scored a career-high 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting against her former team.
Ogwumike also went 3 for 3 at the free-throw line – those three foul shots in 31 minutes half the amount she’d taken in the first seven games of the second half of the season post-Olympic break, when she was awarded six foul shots in 220 minutes, much to the Sparks’ dismay.
More to come on this story.
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