{"id":489459,"date":"2026-01-03T12:55:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T12:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/489459\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T12:55:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T12:55:30","slug":"fighting-for-a-playoff-spot-sparks-fall-to-the-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/489459\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting for a playoff spot, Sparks fall to the Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ATLANTA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Rhyne Howard scored 19 points, Brionna Jones had 16 points and 13 rebounds for her 12th double-double of the season, and the Atlanta Dream beat the Sparks <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wnba.com\/game\/1022500263\/LAS-vs-ATL\/boxscore\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">86-75 on Wednesday night<\/a> to move into sole possession of second place in the WNBA standings.<\/p>\n<p>The Sparks (19-21) trails Indiana (21-20) by a game and a half for the <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wnba.com\/standings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eighth and final playoff spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta (27-14), which has won five of its last six games, moved a half-game ahead of Las Vegas (26-14) and Phoenix (26-14) with three regular-season games remaining.<\/p>\n<p>The Dream play <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/sparks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Sparks<\/a> again Friday, followed by a two-game series with Connecticut to end the season. The Sparks have four games remaining with two of them at home.<\/p>\n<p>Dearica Hamby had 21 points, nine rebounds and four assists for the Sparks. Kelsey Plum had 18 points and seven assists, and Rickea Jackson scored 15.<\/p>\n<p>Naz Hillmon added 15 points and Maya Caldwell scored 14 for Atlanta. Former UCLA star Jordin Canada recorded her first double-double this season with 10 points and 10 assists.<\/p>\n<p>The Sparks scored the opening 10 points of the game as Atlanta missed its first seven field goals. But the Dream closed the quarter on a 12-3 run to take a 26-24 lead after one. Atlanta started the second quarter on a 15-3 run to build a 41-27 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta led 53-41 at the break behind Howard\u2019s 12 points and three three-pointers. The Dream led by at least eight points the entire second half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Rhyne Howard scored 19 points, Brionna Jones had 16 points and 13 rebounds for her 12th double-double of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":489460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[38124,1503,2738,208575,1910,5615,116194,449,388,24566,1521,10201,5950,5612,4232,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-489459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-assist","9":"tag-atlanta-dream","10":"tag-connecticut","11":"tag-first-double-double","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-lead","14":"tag-playoff-spot","15":"tag-point","16":"tag-quarter","17":"tag-rebound","18":"tag-rhyne-howard","19":"tag-run","20":"tag-season","21":"tag-spark","22":"tag-sparks","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115831277165262809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489459","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=489459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}