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We Gon Be Aight: LA Sparks Move to 5-17
58 Plays5 months ago
The LA Sparks have dropped 2 more games at home and continue to struggle with injuries.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Spark Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Sparks fans, it's DJ TreeCeTrees and you are listening to a brand new episode of The Spark, my personal fan commentary podcast for the l LA Sparks. Today's episode starts with closing statements from the game against the Minnesota Lynx.
Reflections on Minnesota Lynx Game
00:00:14
Speaker
Let's listen in to coach Kurt Miller. Obviously a game where we were outplayed, outcoached. um and And again, this is why Minnesota is one of the top three teams in the league right now is their execution at the offensive end, their tempo, their screening, their physicality. It's just really been impressive all year to watch.
00:00:40
Speaker
um against everybody and um you know they're stepping up without even their best player now um and just continuing that. They have such good pros in that locker room that they are very professional about what they do. I thought um that we responded out of halftime. you know We held him to 12 baskets in the second half, and I thought there was there was a more of a desire, a fight, um a physicality that we started to match more.
00:01:12
Speaker
Obviously, it's hard to keep that level up the whole game by Minnesota. So we were benefits of a little bit of that. But you got to give our players credit. But you know the question is, is why why did it take you know taking taking a haymaker in that first quarter to respond when all we've talked about is their execution, their physicality. um And again, our our turnovers against a very good defensive team crept up tonight. Some were self-inflicted, some were um you know just but simply disappointing reads because it's the third time we've played them and and we knew some of the things that we wanted to look for and we couldn't execute to what we had planned trying to go into this game.
00:02:00
Speaker
What's going on, LA
Sparks' Performance Challenges
00:02:01
Speaker
Sparks fans? And welcome back to a brand new episode of The Spark. I'm DJ Tresy Tres. You already know me. It is my personal fan commentary podcast for the LA Sparks. There has been a lot of basketball being played from that long road trip. Now we're in this long home stretch. Um, the Sparks have not been playing great basketball. We all know that we all see that um after every game, there's always either a close moment where we should have closed the game or a very slow start where um we're not sure what's happening and and how the team's playing. So it's good to jump back on here and just kind of recenter, refocus and talk about what's been going on. First of all, the Sparks move to five and 17 on the season, but that's cool. It's a three way tie at the bottom.
00:02:50
Speaker
for five and 17 with the Dallas Wings and the Washington Mystics who have been having similar injury hardships that we've been having, right? We lost Cameron Brink. um We lost Lexi Brown because of ah her Crohn's disease. So she hasn't been back playing for a few games. ah We also recently lost Stephanie Talbot, who had entered the starting lineup, but now is sidelined with an injury and the Olympics are coming up. So we got Stephanie Talbot, who's playing for the Australian team. We have Li Yuru, who's playing with the Chinese team. We have De'Erica Hamby, who's playing in three on three ah women's basketball tournaments.
00:03:31
Speaker
There has been a lot of hardship with the Sparks and I really feel bad for coach Miller because he's been with the Sparks for two seasons in these two seasons. We've had nothing but hardship. Okay. He's had, he hasn't had two games where he's had the same starting lineup and the same bench players available. We've had people with injuries all over the place. So constantly changing that game strategy. and giving different people different minutes and trying to to figure out what you can do in a pinch every single game is very tough. And now we're at the point where um we've got some practices in. This team is getting fairly acclimated. We've seen some great basketball played as we beat the Las Vegas Aces two times this season, which there aren't many teams who can say that they beat Vegas once.
Glimmers of Potential
00:04:14
Speaker
So the fact that the Sparks have beat Vegas twice shows that when matched up with teams that we can compete with, um we we show that grit. We have it, we can pull it out, but it's hard to consistently get that. One thing that has has been a positive for the Sparks is that Azaree Stevens has been back. Um, I interviewed as a raid court side before her first game back. And then I had to had a chance to ask her um some questions after the game as well, which I'll play, um, inside of the post game presser, which I'm going to start including as well into this show. Uh, a lot of people know that I do the before and the after I'm going to start including some of those sound bites. So you can hear a little bit of what I, what I'm asking them and hear a little bit about what's being discussed, um, before and after the game. So you can get a bigger picture of what's happening here.
00:05:01
Speaker
I entitled this episode, We Gonna Be All Right, because we absolutely are gonna be all right. This is a building season. What do you think building looks like? you know I think in this era of basketball, everyone online is saying like, super team this, super team that. you know You got three Olympians on the Aces team. You got Stewie who teamed up with Sabrina Inescu, Sloot, Benajalani over on the East Coast with the New York Liberty. um when good teams have to be built. You know, we're seeing the Connecticut sun coming back and starting strong from a season that they had where they had a disappointing end. You know, for us to build something great and to change the culture with losing our star player, player in Nneka Ogumake moving to the Seattle storm, we got De'Erika Hamby, who's now stepping up and giving us all-star caliber basketball. We don't have the the rest of the pieces there.
00:05:57
Speaker
As well as, you know, Cameron Brink with that ACL tear has been sitting on the bench. Rekia Jackson is ah the third top rookie right now in the league. So offensively, she's opening up defensively. She's opening up the brightest days for Sparks basketball are in our future.
Building Team Culture and Fan Support
00:06:15
Speaker
So right now, this is a tough season to be a fan, but we have to stick through it and watch the process as it unfolds, as we get new players. It's it's going to be exciting to see what free agency looks like um after this season, but not even skipping ahead until the end of the season. Just looking at what the season is going to look like after this Olympic break and after the all-star break, you know,
00:06:39
Speaker
having some time to sit with it to get some more practices in. Um, Ari McDonald has really stepped up and she has this next woman up mentality. So I'm talking to the players and they've got all the pieces, but the execution of it is really where it's missing. You know, you, you, you have these defensive slippages with these teams like the Minnesota links that we just recently played last night at crypto. That's a great team defensively. You They're going to catch you slipping every single time. You can't leave anybody open with Kayla McBride. um Nafisa Collier wasn't playing, but still the team was able to secure the win without her because even their bench is well coached, you know, and that's even something that coach Kurt Miller said in the press conference. So,
00:07:24
Speaker
Sparks fans, I know this is tough for us to sit through and watch our team lose. I'm in the arena. The energy is not there. Make sure you're coming out to support our team even when we don't have the pieces together. It's because we're developing. championship basketball is going to return to l LA. We have a new GM. Um, there's a new president of the team. We have so many different new pieces and these things don't happen overnight. As we can see with the Lakers, as we can see with so many other sports teams that have to take the pieces apart, um, to put them back together. And all I always like to say it's always darkest before the light.
00:08:02
Speaker
and things fall apart to fall together. So make sure that we're supporting our sparks. we're We're being constructive in our criticism. We do expect better basketball to be played and it will be better basketball played. We just have to have ah some patience with this team and and let them get their stuff together. I know were we're saying this every game, but these players are new to each other. They're not new to the basketball arena, um but they're new to each other. Leeroo, this is her first season back in the WNBA. She hasn't been playing
00:08:34
Speaker
in the W. You know, she's been giving us a lot of minutes and been doing a lot of things. Ray Burrell has really stepped up and done a lot. Aerie McDonald is new to the Sparks. I'm hoping they renew her contract. She's earned every dollar of her salary. She's been that offensive spark. We're just figuring it out. It's, and it's, it's really exciting to see how coach is planning and scheming to put things together and what kind of match-ups we're getting. So be patient y'all. We going to be all right. We're five and 17 on a season, excited to see where we finished, but really excited to give our team some weeks off to kind of refocus, re-scheme. Coach Miller will be out with USA basketball. De'Erica will be playing, um,
00:09:15
Speaker
USA. Again, Stephanie Talbot will be playing in Australia. Lee will have some time with the Chinese team. So everybody needs some rest and recuperation at this time. It's a condensed season. So it was going to be weird anyway. Let's stay patient with our sparks. Like, share, subscribe to this podcast, leave some comments below on unnecessary tweaks that you think will work for the sparks or even maybe drop some questions and I'll check them out on social media or check them out on YouTube. and ask coaching the next press conference. Be patient y'all. It's still looking good for us. So make sure you stay subscribed to the spark. I'm DJ Tracy treats again. Thanks for tuning in. And until next time, go sparks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the spark. But before you go, let's listen in on the question that I asked coach in the press conference after the game.
Tough Matchups and Defensive Struggles
00:10:03
Speaker
and Coach DJ from Infinity TV. We beat Vegas two times, and after the second Vegas win, you were just saying, you know, in the WNBA, it's funny like that, that sometimes you just have better matchups. Would you say, from your opinion at this point, that Minnesota is just the opposite of that, and they're constantly the the matchup to beat for us? Yeah, for us, um you know, with a younger team, ah that at times relaxes on defense when they think they're out of maybe a scoring action. And you just have to have five people constantly engaged defensively and flowing to actions and moving towards actions when they're not in necessarily the scoring action. If not, they just they move you and they move you and they move you.
00:10:50
Speaker
um So, you know, this match-up is difficult for us. You know, it's this league's funny like that. There's just match-ups that are better. In Connecticut, um you know, it was one of those things. I had a team that matched up well with Minnesota. When I left Connecticut, I had probably, I think, I think I read this somewhere. the best career record against Cheryl Reeve. And we have not won a game against Minnesota since I arrived here now. So that no longer stat exists. But you know we had you know we've had a bunch of success against them. um But again, those were really, really locked in defensive teams in Connecticut. And I'm i'm trying to build that here with that same defensive intensity. Coach, you know you talked about the players and
00:11:38
Speaker
just you know things that they have to do and they have to figure out. As a coach, like ah how frustrated are you or what what things do you think you can do better to kind of get through to them to make sure that they're like not having a slippage and being where they need to be, playing how hard they need to play, and even like making sure they knock down the shots. Yeah, the effort is the the frustrating thing, right? like again With a young and a building, and I've done this everywhere I've gone, ah there's growing pains. There's nights where um you don't play well. It's just not your night. There's nights where you can get up and how consistent you can be like that. and
00:12:21
Speaker
when you're in the build is, you know, all part of it. So, you know, I know, you know, and again, injuries, illness, people in and out of lineups. Again, Steph's our energy person. Steph has been in the starting lineup. All of a sudden now Steph basically has missed two games in a row. um And so we lose that toughness, we lose that extra passer, we lose that extra glue kit. You know, it's all part of it, and but we you gotta to keep stepping up, you know, when you have adversity. And so we had more adversity tonight, we get Azuray back and going, but then you lose step. So again, my more of my frustration is physicality, is toughness, is effort. Because those those things,
00:13:05
Speaker
I don't want to coach, you know, I just want them to be consistent every night and we need them. You know, we talked about the margin in here a lot between winning and losing for us. Our margin is different than a bunch of teams um in this league. And so you have to every night bringing your toughness, your energy, your physicality. And we got out-toughed, we got out-physical tonight. Our energy wasn't as high as theirs in the first quarter, which set us back. And, you know, and then, yeah you know like I obviously got out coached because I wasn't able to push those buttons soon enough. um you know And again, they came did you know they put their starters back in. They played. We held them to 12 baskets in the second half. We outscored them in the second half. But you know like they no that's just you know things you can talk and try to gain confidence out of players. But in reality, we we need to talk about that first quarter and why was it the way it was.
00:14:03
Speaker
you