Sparks Set Sights on Houston
HOUSTON — The Comets’ Sheryl Swoopes calls it the game.
Spark Coach Michael Cooper, in a sly, challenging way, says, “Here we come, Houston.”
It’s Big Game Saturday this afternoon in the WNBA, a playoff preview collision between the league’s two best teams, three-time champion Houston (22-4) and the Western Conference-leading Sparks (23-3).
And peg it also as a matchup of the league’s two top MVP candidates, Swoopes and Lisa Leslie of the Sparks.
At stake for the Sparks is their feathery grip on first place. If they maintain it through Aug. 9, when their season-ending, six-game trip ends in Salt Lake City, they will get the home-court advantage in the playoffs. If they don’t, Houston will.
The Sparks have won seven straight and 19 of their last 20. They have beaten the Comets in their only two meetings this season, both at the Great Western Forum, 90-84 on June 20 and 63-58 on July 14.
Swoopes, in a tight race with Minnesota’s Katie Smith for the WNBA scoring championship, leads with a 21.2-point average to Smith’s 20.2.
Swoopes is on everyone’s MVP short list and Leslie is picking up support as the Sparks’ surge shows no sign of slowing. She’s scoring 17.5 points and taking down 9.7 rebounds a game and playing the toughest, most physical defense of her career.
Thursday, for example, she knocked Seattle’s Kamila Vodichkova on her back with an accidental forearm whack to the forehead. A summer ago, Leslie might have bent over, apologized, and helped her foe to her feet. Not this year. She simply turned, shrugged, and returned to her work station.
A major matchup today figures to be the Sparks’ Tamecka Dixon playing defense against Swoopes.
In the last meeting, Swoopes had 17 points in the first half against Mwadi Mabika, driving Houston to a 32-21 lead at the break. Dixon held her to nine in the second half and the Sparks blitzed the Comets, 42-26.
The Comets figure to have an emotional edge today. The team picked today to retire the jersey of point guard Kim Perrot, who died of cancer last August.
