LOS ANGELES — Another double-double from Nneka Ogwumike was not enough for the Sparks in a game with playoff implications.
Ogwumike scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for her 101st career double-double, but the Sparks could not protect an 11-point first-half lead then could not complete a late rally and lost to the Chicago Sky, 76-75, on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The Sparks, who are battling Chicago for the No. 8 seed in the WNBA playoffs, missed three potential game-winning shots in the final seconds – a turnaround jump shot by Jordin Canada with 10 seconds left, a corner 3-point attempt by Jasmine Thomas with five seconds remaining, and a fadeaway baseline shot by Karlie Samuelson just before the buzzer.
“Throughout the night we had great looks. We just didn’t shoot the ball well (36.7% from the field and 30.4% from 3-point range),” Canada said. “At the end of the game, we got three looks and couldn’t knock it down but we’ll continue to look at the film and see what we did wrong and move forward to the next game.”
All-Star guard Kahleah Copper scored eight of her 22 points in the final 6:04, including two field goals in the closing 45 seconds, to lead Chicago down the stretch.
Copper ended a 9-0 Sparks run with a layup with 44.5 seconds left to give the Sky a 74-72 lead. Samuelson answered with her second 3-pointer in less than two minutes to put the Sparks back in front at 75-74 with 38.1 seconds left.
Copper drove down the middle of the lane and made a contested layup in the lane to give Chicago a one-point lead with 22.8 seconds left, setting up the Sparks for their final possession and their three misses.
The Sparks (15-20) remain a half-game ahead of Chicago (15-21) for the final playoff spot in the 12-team league and they still control their own playoff destiny with five games left in the regular season, but the Sky do now hold the series tiebreaker after winning three of the four meetings.
“Obviously, playoffs…
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