{"id":847906,"date":"2026-06-06T06:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/847906\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T06:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:26:17","slug":"kelsey-plums-return-cant-reverse-sparks-slide-in-loss-to-wings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/847906\/","title":{"rendered":"Kelsey Plum’s return can’t reverse Sparks’ slide in loss to Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Not even Kelsey Plum<\/a>\u2019s return could overcome the will of the Dallas Wings on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Although the WNBA\u2019s leading scorer returned from an ankle injury to score 27 points, the Sparks<\/a> still let a winnable game get away from them in a 104-96 loss<\/a>. It marked their first three-game losing streak since June of last year.<\/p>\n

The Sparks\u2019 offense looked much better than it did in Tuesday\u2019s 79-69 loss to Las Vegas<\/a>, but it struggled in the fourth quarter, allowing Dallas (7-3) an opportunity to storm back and win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball was moving, we had balanced scoring, five players in double figures, that\u2019s how we want to play,\u201d coach Lynne Roberts said. \u201cDallas is a good team. I think in the last four minutes they kind of willed it to happen for them, and we didn\u2019t, and that\u2019s unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sparks (4-6) had no answers for the three-headed attack of Arike Ogunbowale<\/a>, Paige Bueckers<\/a> and Jessica Shepard<\/a>, who spearheaded the Wings\u2019 63% shooting effort in the fourth quarter to seal the win.<\/p>\n

The Sparks entered the game with the WNBA\u2019s worst defensive rating, and they allowed more than 100 points for a league-worst third time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just had some really timely, kind of what I call 50-50 plays, could go either way, went their way, and they capitalized on it,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo you have to tip your hat to them. We didn\u2019t win the last three, four minutes, and it cost us. It\u2019s a game of runs. They made the last run.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sparks led by nine points in the second quarter but surrendered the lead late in the quarter as the Wings capitalized on 55% shooting to cut their deficit to one by halftime.<\/p>\n

The Sparks led 78-77 going into the fourth after a back-and-forth third quarter, but Dallas went on a 15-5 run to lead by eight. It was the only cold quarter for the Sparks, who scored just 18 points, with more than half of their offense coming from Plum.<\/p>\n

\"Dallas <\/p>\n

Dallas guard Paige Bueckers controls the ball in front of Sparks guard Kelsey Plum during the second half Friday.<\/p>\n

(Luiza Moraes \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just mental toughness,\u201d Sparks forward Dearica Hamby<\/a> said. \u201cRebounds, helping the strong side [defensively] when we shouldn\u2019t be. Just little things that we could have had more control over. We have to be more disciplined to finish a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a two-point game with under two minutes to play when Ogunbowale collected a rebound off her own shot to give the Wings a two-possession lead before Plum missed a three-pointer and a free throw.<\/p>\n

Nneka Ogwumike notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Ariel Atkins scored 16 points. Hamby scored 15 points on six-for-eight shooting, a strong bounce-back performance after shooting 0 for 7 against the Aces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all just kind of trying to figure it out, adding new pieces,\u201d she said. \u201cI definitely felt more natural the first half, back to just having more of an open floor, but we\u2019ll continue to build off that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ogunbowale scored a game-high 30 points and made six three-pointers. Bueckers had career-high 14 assists and Shepard finished with 22 points with 15 rebounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a team thing,\u201d Atkins said of the defense. \u201cWe have to pay attention to the details of the game and [be] sticking with the scout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wings guard Odyssey Sims left the court in a wheelchair in the second quarter after she twisted her left ankle coming down from a rebound attempt; she didn\u2019t return. In the fourth, Aziaha James had to be carried off by her teammates after she got hit hard by an Ogwumike screen.<\/p>\n

The Sparks will host the expansion Portland Fire (6-6) on Sunday, who lost a tight game against Phoenix on Friday night but have been an electric team offensively.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the scoring woes are over with Plum back in the lineup, but the Sparks still seem a long way off from finding their footing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to keep building,\u201d Hamby said. \u201cWe have another game in two days, then the next four or five games are definitely winnable, so carry over the positives from this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not even Kelsey Plum\u2019s return could overcome the will of the Dallas Wings on Friday night. Although the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":847907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[2339,53902,2470,33353,346607,5610,5615,5948,6475,43367,449,24566,219445,4232,62,67,132,68,14378,232],"class_list":["post-847906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-arike-ogunbowale","tag-consecutive-game","tag-dallas-wings","tag-fourth-quarter","tag-jessica-shepherd","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-lead","tag-loss","tag-night","tag-offense","tag-point","tag-rebound","tag-slide","tag-sparks","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wings","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116701744876861175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847906","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=847906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}