Poor shooting sinks Sparks in loss to Aces

Coming off a dreadful loss in Connecticut to the worst crew in the WNBA, the Sparks needed a strong response.

In their first home recreation after the highway journey, that didn’t occur until far too late.

The Sparks had been always just out of attain in their 79-69 loss to the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night time, despite Rae Burrell’s career-high 22 factors and a late comeback bid. It was the fewest they’ve scored in a recreation since Aug. 9 of last season when they scored 59 factors.

Last time the Sparks confronted the Aces (6-3) on May 23, they went into Las Vegas and scored 29 factors in the fourth quarter for a large highway win, powered by Kelsey Plum.

But Plum, who leads the WNBA with 26.8 factors per recreation, is still out with a proper ankle sprain, and the Sparks (4-5) offense suffered for it. Other than Burrell’s scoring, the remainder of the Sparks offense mixed to shoot 12 for 51.

They also entered the night time with the league’s worst protection. It’s always going to be troublesome to stop A’ja Wilson (25 factors), but the Sparks had few solutions for Jackie Young (16 factors, 9 assists) who spaced out the Aces’ offense.

It still was far from their worst defensive displaying of the season, and largely they couldn’t claw their approach back with a paltry 30.8% from the sphere. In fact, the Aces scored just 15 factors in the fourth, giving the Sparks a window to come back, but they shot 29.4% in the quarter.

The Sparks fell into a 15-point gap in the second after going almost three minutes without scoring. Burrell scored seven of her factors in the second, though, to ignite a 20-point quarter and the Sparks trailed 37-30 at the half.

But the Aces shortly constructed a 13-point lead early in the third and stayed up double digits until close to the end of the fourth when Burrell made it a seven-point recreation.

Plum missed her fourth consecutive recreation since injuring her proper ankle in follow. She participated in shootaround Tuesday even after being ruled out, and head coach Lynne Roberts said she was day-to-day.

But the Aces had been also shorthanded, without Dana Evans, Jewel Loyd and Chennedy Carter, who is second on the Aces in scoring despite coming off the bench. That compelled the Aces to run some units with Wilson at small ahead and a much-larger entrance court in entrance of her before NaLyssa Smith ran into foul bother.

The Sparks forwards struggled with that, with Dearica Hamby, Nneka Ogwumike and Cameron Brink combining to shoot six-for-27, including an 0-for-7 night time from Hamby.

Burrell had to be helped off the ground after the buzzer after showing to roll an ankle, but her condition was unclear.

The Sparks next host Dallas (6-3) on Friday night time.