{"id":128272,"date":"2025-08-08T05:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/128272\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T05:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:38:11","slug":"julie-allemand-and-dearica-hamby-lead-sparks-to-third-straight-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/128272\/","title":{"rendered":"Julie Allemand and Dearica Hamby lead Sparks to third straight win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Julie Vanloo<\/a> drew her second traveling violation before halftime, the crowd\u2019s disapproval rose in unison.<\/p>\n

On the floor, with tempers simmering on the Sparks<\/a>\u2019 bench, a delay-of-game whistle drew another round of jeers from the Crypto.com Arena crowd.<\/p>\n

The calls weren\u2019t the only sources of frustration for the Sparks \u2014 the team also was trailing the last-place Connecticut Sun by 10 points.<\/p>\n

Still, the flare-up might have been what the Sparks needed to rally to a 102-91 victory<\/a> over the Sun to earn their eighth win in nine games.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the beginning of the season, I\u2019ve been optimistic about what this team would look like and why I want to be here and why I want to continue to be here,\u201d Dearica Hamby said. \u201c[This team is] one of the fastest teams I\u2019ve been with. … We\u2019re not done yet, we\u2019ve got a lot more to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

After their deficit swelled to 13 points late in the second quarter, the Sparks (14-15) went on a 14-0 run, trimming the Sun\u2019s lead to 51-49 by halftime.<\/p>\n

In the third quarter, Hamby helped the Sparks keep pace with the Sun (5-24). Hamby racked up six points, an assist and a defensive rebound over four minutes. <\/p>\n

A three-pointer by Rae Burrell<\/a> late in the third quarter gave the Sparks a 66-64 lead. The Sun managed to tie it in the fourth quarter before a Cameron Brink<\/a> three with 8:06 left gave the Sparks the lead for good. <\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Sparks\u2019 Rickea Jackson, left, Cameron Brink and Rae Burrell during the fourth quarter Thursday.<\/p>\n

(Luke Hales \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve hung in there and, as I\u2019ve said, didn\u2019t lose sight of the big picture when we had all those injuries and a lot of adversity,\u201d Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of adversity in that sense, and took some tough losses. But it\u2019s a great group. They\u2019re good people and they want this team to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julie Allemand<\/a> was a consistent force throughout the game, finishing with 10 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds to become the 22nd player in WNBA history to record a triple-double.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just dialing today, she was really good,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cIt was impossible in the second half to take her out of the game. … She was just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the opening quarter \u2014 when Allemand flashed her handle with a flurry of steps, an in-and-out dribble and a hard drive before dishing to Rickea Jackson<\/a> for a three-pointer at the extended elbow \u2014 the Allemand Act didn\u2019t let up. <\/p>\n

She proved to be an essential floor general for the Sparks, as the Sun held leading scorer Kelsey Plum to just one point in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cKP didn\u2019t have a great offensive first half,\u201d Allemand said. \u201cI\u2019m trying as a point guard to see what I need to do to help this team \u2014 if it\u2019s scoring, if it\u2019s rebounding, playing defense, offense, depending how [to] fuel my teammates on the court, and I think that\u2019s what I did today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamby finished with 21 points, five rebounds and four assists and Jackson scored 20 points. Plum surged in the second half to finish with 18 points and Burrell had nine points off the bench.<\/p>\n

With Brink back proving to be strong on both ends \u2014 she finished with 11 points, five blocks and two rebounds \u2014 the Sparks turned Crypto.com Arena\u2019s boos into all cheers by the end of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Julie Vanloo drew her second traveling violation before halftime, the crowd\u2019s disapproval rose in unison. On the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":128273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[78354,6362,10589,78356,20009,1910,78357,10590,449,5612,4232,62,582,78358,78353,78355,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-128272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-arena-crowd","9":"tag-crypto","10":"tag-dearica-hamby","11":"tag-defensive-rebound","12":"tag-deficit","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-halftime","15":"tag-julie-allemand","16":"tag-point","17":"tag-spark","18":"tag-sparks","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sun","21":"tag-third-quarter-dearica-hamby","22":"tag-third-straight-win","23":"tag-three-pointer","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114991536926343656","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}