Cameron Brink and the Los Angeles Sparks outpaced Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings on Friday night, earning a hard-fought 97-96 win behind seven rebounds from the standout forward.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Bueckers reached a milestone in her rookie campaign, setting the franchise\u2019s single-season rookie assist record with her 143rd assist of the year and becoming the fastest rookie in WNBA history to reach 500 points and 100 assists. <\/p>\n
Despite a strong performance from Paige Bueckers, who finished with 29 points, five assists and four rebounds, the Wings couldn\u2019t come away with the win. The No. 1 overall pick in this year\u2019s WNBA Draft continues to impress in her rookie campaign.<\/p>\n
Brink did not attempt a shot in the game, finishing with three points from the free-throw line, while Kelsey Plum led the way with 28 points and Dearica Hamby added 20 points and 10 rebounds to help fuel a smooth, balanced Sparks offense.<\/p>\n
Dallas, now 9-25, remains in the bottom three of the WNBA standings despite Bueckers\u2019 standout season, where she\u2019s averaging 18.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game.<\/p>\n
The Sparks came out hot, building an early 11-point lead behind a dominant start from Hamby, who tallied 16 points, four rebounds and two steals on 54.5% shooting in the first half. Rickea Jackson added 13 points, and Plum chipped in 12. Brink struggled to find her offensive rhythm but grabbed three rebounds.<\/p>\n
Dallas found its spark off the bench, outscoring Los Angeles\u2019 reserves 18-4 in the opening half. Bueckers led the Wings with 15 points, three assists and a rebound, while Luisa Geisels\u00f6der added nine points to help Dallas cut the deficit to 53-50 at the break.<\/p>\n
The Sparks began to pull away in the third quarter, outscoring the Wings 27-18 to take an 80-68 lead into the final frame. But Dallas refused to go down quietly, cutting the deficit to six on a layup and free throw by Bueckers with under 2:30 remaining.<\/p>\n
A Bueckers-assisted jumper by Aziaha James made it a four-point game, and another Bueckers bucket, followed by an offensive charge on the Sparks, set up JJ Quinerly to knock down a clutch three-pointer with 15 seconds left, pulling Dallas within one. However, Bueckers\u2019 final three-point attempt at the buzzer fell short, and the Sparks escaped with the narrow win.<\/p>\n
The Sparks will aim for their second straight win Sunday against the Mystics in Washington, D.C., while the Wings shift their focus to a tough road matchup against the red-hot Las Vegas Aces, who are riding a five-game win streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Brink and the Los Angeles Sparks outpaced Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings on Friday night, earning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-149554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115036442095882287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149554","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=149554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}