Sparks shut down Sky in fourth quarter to take win

The Sparks were down two starters. They had trailed by double-digits early in the first half. Toward the end of this compact WNBA season, exhaustion was clearly something the team was fighting through in the fourth quarter against the Chicago Sky on Sunday.

But the Sparks powered through not with overwhelming offense, but through smothering defense.

The Sparks held the Sky to 5 of 20 shooting in the fourth quarter, including five misses to end the game, to take an 86-80 win.

Los Angeles (14-5) was led by 24 points and 15 rebounds from Candace Parker and a 20-point, seven-assist, six-rebound game from Chelsea Gray in the win.

And it came short-handed. Guard Brittney Sykes left in the second half after taking a knee to the chest as she drew a charge. And guard Sydney Wiese suffered a nasty-looking turned ankle in the first quarter.

After Wiese went down, the Sparks surrounded her on the court at IMG Academy before she was helped to the locker room, where she was diagnosed with a right foot sprain.

The Sparks appeared rattled and out of sorts after Wiese’s injury. Chicago guard Allie Quigley hit three consecutive 3-pointers to turn a tie game into a seven-point Sky advantage. Chicago (11-9) as a whole was hot from the floor, making 6 of 11 shots from 3-point range in the first quarter.

The Sky built their lead up to 13 in the second, but the Sparks, and more specifically Candace Parker, Chelsea Gray and Nneka Ogwumike, eventually said enough.

And that was the start of a 10-0 run, and a bigger 21-7 run that saw the Sparks retake the lead briefly before the half. It started with a 3-pointer from Ogwumike, back for the first time after missing a week with a sore back.

In that stretch, Parker, Gray and Ogwumike combined for 19 points. The most memorable of the baskets came when Parker faked an overhead pass, causing her defender to turn around and leave Parker open for a layup.

A pull-up jumper from Gray with 1:25 left in the half gave the Sparks the lead, though a Gabby Williams transition layup gave the Sky a one-point edge at the break.