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More Hardship for the LA Sparks: Season Record Slumps to 4-16
44 Plays6 months ago
In this episode of The Spark, I delve into the ongoing struggles of the Los Angeles Sparks as their season record takes another hit, now standing at a disappointing 4-16. Join me as I analyze the key factors contributing to their tough season, from injuries and player performance to coaching decisions and team dynamics. We also discuss what needs to change for the Sparks to turn their season around and explore potential strategies moving forward.
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sportspodcast , reaction , commentary , basketballb , wnba , lasparks , basketballcommentary , losangelessparks , womenssbasketball , wnbahighlights , espn , wnbanews, wnbapodcast
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Transcript
Coach Miller on Team Challenges
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Coach, DJ from Infinity TV. Just returning from a long road trip, what are your like top action items for this game, especially against Washington, who's in a similar position as us? First, glad to be home. and You know, that nine games and 18 day stretch was hard and obviously with some adversity with injuries and illnesses that came through that road trip. But since the commissioner cut break, we've had some practices which, you know, feel good about. We had a few practices before we played Phoenix. I thought that equated to a first half that really looked like we had practiced and had some intent.
00:00:44
Speaker
um And while we couldn't sustain it and didn't have the third quarter we'd like you you could tell that a young group got to practice so um To segue into tonight's game. We've now had two practices for Washington same kind of thing ah You know I hope that equates into we are playing with intent there's a game plan that we're sticking to now can we sustain it and for the 40 minutes, that will be you know what we're looking for. And less slippage, both um sides of the ball, less slippage in some of our defensive schemes and coverages, less slippage in or lapses in in turnovers that are live ball turnovers that are
Key Practices and Young Team Development
00:01:27
Speaker
hurting us. So you know just excited, you know we you rarely got to practice in that 18 day stretch.
00:01:35
Speaker
So to have four practices and in a week is a lot in this cadence of season and i and I hope that it continues. I just feel so much better getting on the floor being able to teach this young group. Thank you.
DJ Tracy Trees on LA Sparks' Rebuilding Season
00:01:49
Speaker
What's going on Sparks fans and welcome back to another episode of the spark. My personal fan commentary podcast for the LA Sparks. You already know me. I'm DJ Tracy trees and welcome back to my YouTube channel for yet another episode to talk about WNBA basketball specifically about your Los Angeles parks. It has been a tough season. I feel like I said that last year, but we knew that um we were in a rebuilding season. We knew that there were were a lot of new players that were going to be in the rotation.
00:02:18
Speaker
And in the fold, we didn't know that there was going to be such injury and hardship this season. But you know what? Same thing happened last season and a coach Miller in the press conference also talked about how it seems that he's it so far here in his career in LA, you know, he's been riddled with hardship, everybody being out kind of thing. Um, Cameron Brings suffered that ACL. We just got back from, we played one game back in crypto dot.com Marina back from that long road trip where we took some L's. We've lost eight of our past 10 games. Losing eight games story is a new Sparks record. That doesn't break my heart again.
00:03:03
Speaker
Things have to fall apart to fall together, in my opinion. And um the last game was a little bit heartbreaking. We played against the Washington Mystics on July 2nd and lost that game 82 to 80. We were up 16 points in the third quarter and somehow that lead just slid. Coach Miller was not happy about it. but just because of those small things that keep happening, right? Those little defensive breakdowns, um, that kind of caused those points to, to stack on you there. But the the Washington mystics aren't a better team than us. And luckily in the WNBA, everybody
00:03:38
Speaker
every night gets a chance to win. and the The competition in between teams is so close that it could be anybody's game any night. um Unfortunately, the Washington Mystics came out on top. They were on fire from outside the three-point line, which is something that Coach Miller and the pregame presser talked about knowing. He said they they only have four wins. We have four wins. We gave them their fifth win. But he said in all four games that they won, they shot over 40% outside of the three-point line. And right out of the gate, that's what was happening with us. We were exchanging threes back and forth. um But you can't do that with a team like Washington. You have to play great defense. um They didn't even have Carly Samuelson in, which is another one of their great shooters. But we just couldn't get the job done. Stephanie Talbot hit a game.
00:04:26
Speaker
almost closer closer. I want to call it a game winning. It was a great shot. I still went crazy, even though I knew we were going to lose because it was like, be competitive up until the last minute, which is what we have seen our sparks do, which is what we are known for, which is what we are super good at is just being competitive this whole time. So there are a lot of great things that we can take from some of these losses as we continue to build.
Player Highlights: Hamby, McDonald, Talbot, and Stevens
00:04:50
Speaker
De'Erika Hamby has been named an All-Star for the third time. Congratulations to De'Erika Hamby. She's done an amazing job and has been having an MVP-ish kind of season. um She does get to play in the Olympics because of Cameron Brink's ACL tear. So De'Erika Hamby is our star right now. She is doing a phenomenal job and has some opportunity to play some Olympic basketball on three on three and bring home a gold medal. That's a positive.
00:05:16
Speaker
Another positive is Aerie McDonald is really settling in with the Sparks. She has been um starting as a point guard and has been doing a phenomenal job of protecting the ball, bringing the ball up and creating some offensive opportunities for us to score against teams that it might be hard to compete against. So we've seen Ari McDonald really step up and, and, uh, have assist. She's had a 15 point game, a 14 point game. I mean, she's really done her thing in, in just scoring double digits and and getting some assists to get the ball to other players.
00:05:51
Speaker
Stephanie Talbot, you've heard me talk about her on this podcast a lot and you've heard me talk about her on the LA Sparks weekly show. That's a player that kind of came out of nowhere. Um, for us at least she's, she's on the Australian Olympic team. She will be playing in the Olympics for Australia, but she is, she has 17 points in the game against Washington. Stephanie Talbot has been coming in and just doing those small basketball things that are affecting change. She's getting rebounds. She's taking the ball up. her some Her shots haven't been um super great from the outside of the three point line, but she is taking shots, which is important. it Instead of turning the ball over, she's taking shots and contributing. Last game she scored 17 points with her game high. So looking forward to seeing more from Stephanie Talbot.
00:06:37
Speaker
Some things that we're also looking forward to as a Ray Z Stevens has been out. She had to have surgery on her shoulder earlier on the off season. She was just warming up. It's looking like she's going to come back before the Olympic break. I'm not sure which game she's going to play in. Hopefully she plays in the game tonight against the Las Vegas Aces because we could use her size and her skill. She's been warming up. She's been playing full contact and practice as the Ray will be coming back soon. So that's another forward that can add to um some of our success and can play with Rakia.
00:07:11
Speaker
the rookie who who's had been having some great games, but you just need some veteran leadership out there. Some things that have kind of been unforeseen, things that have happened for us.
Team Changes and Health Challenges
00:07:21
Speaker
We talked about signing Queen Eggbow in a hardship contract. She joined the team over the road trip. Unfortunately, she was waived before coming back home. uh, to play against the mystic. So we no longer have queen on that hardship contract. Just recently here, we signed crystal danger field who was recently wave from the Atlanta dream. She's now here with the sparks and hopefully we'll see her play a little bit tonight against the Las Vegas aces. I'm not sure how much practice she got in yesterday, which they did have practice on the 4th of July. I asked about that. I was very shocked.
00:07:55
Speaker
But evidently in this sports world, there's no fireworks and barbecues, which is crazy to me. But the girls were still out there practicing. One thing I do want to talk about that kind of caught us off guard was Lexi Brown is out. We know she's been battling Crohn's disease. She's been out the last couple of games just with illness. She got sick over the road trip, which coach Kurt Miller revealed to us inside of the press conference. So Lexi's out as of June 27 for the unforeseeable future. many, many thoughts and prayers out to, to Lexi and she's living with this disease, right? This is not an injury where it's like, all right, cool. Are you better now? This is something that she's going to continue battling. Um, she's back. She's been back on gills arena. So at least she's still talking about basketball and doing some things that are in her normal rotation. We would love to see Lexi play, but we want Lexi healthy.
00:08:47
Speaker
we would much prefer that Lexi Brown is living a comfortable life than we're out working her um and making her uncomfortable out on the court. Sparks have got some work to do. Very frustrating loss against the Washington Mystics. I jokingly put up a ah podcast episode a couple of weeks ago that said, at least we're not the Mystics. Unfortunately, we're worse than the Mystics right now, so things can always get worse. But no worries here. Keep it locked. The Sparks are having a rough season, but I'm excited to see how we work through this hardship. And for all of you fans out there that are fair weather fans and are leaving early before the games in and deciding not to come out, you know, it really shows what kind of fan you are when the team is doing this. And I talk about this a lot when I talk about the Lakers and in all of LA sports, sorry, sports. I want to say spark so bad. All of LA sports. It's like when the team is not good, the people aren't showing up. I don't like that.
00:09:46
Speaker
If you go ride with a team, this is the basketball that you wanted. We talk about super teams and teams getting together and people just not wanting to grow with the franchise. You as a fan should be willing to grow with the franchise, right? We started over, we lost Neko Gomikei, which was our last all-star player from the championship team, right? We don't have any other players on the team who who won that championship with us last. So rebuild with us. We've got a new staff. We've got a new coach. A lot of people already in season two are like, he doesn't know what he's doing. He hasn't had a consistent
00:10:22
Speaker
player roster so far, including last season and this season. So it's like, have we really seen what coach Miller can do? No, we haven't. Have we really seen what these players can do? No, you know, we we didn't even really get to see what Cameron Brink did before she was out.
Focus on Resilience and Upcoming Games
00:10:38
Speaker
Rekia Jackson, we're seeing a lot of her growth here, and I'm really proud for her for stepping up. In the Washington game, she had a couple of unfortunate missteps with just easy mislayups and things like that. But she's a rookie. You expect that to happen from rookie. She's still holding her own. She's still doing a great job. And when I talk to the the players, I talked to Ari and De'Erika.
00:11:00
Speaker
after the game against the mystics. And you know I'm like, how do you recover from a loss like this? What do you go in the locker room and tell the team? And they kept saying, it's just the next game. you You have to always be able to wipe the slate clean, not get too high up, not get too low down, and go to the next game. So as fans, I'm doing a call to action to you. Don't get too high up. don't get too low down. Let's rock with our sparks and watch this interesting season as it unfolds and we try to compete and we try to dig our way out of this deficit. There are teams who are doing better than us, but right now just watching this team come together and seeing what kind of pieces they put together is super exciting basketball and we're keeping it competitive. So definitely still come out to the games, keep watching it tonight.
00:11:45
Speaker
um Today is Friday, July 5th. We'll be playing the Las Vegas Aces. It'll be on ION at 7 PM Pacific time. I'll be at the game, of course, on the court with the LA Sparks Weekly Show. Tonight, we'll have a special guest. um Mike L. Matthew won't be joining me. So tap in. Make sure you follow me on Instagram at DJ Treezy Trees and follow the LA Sparks Weekly page on Instagram as well at l LA Sparks Weekly. We always have some cool things that are happening to the game there. I, of course, if you follow my stories, you'll see all the behind the scenes access there. Thank you so much for tuning in to the LA Sparks weekly show and helping me out on there.
00:12:25
Speaker
We're trying to get that show to be an official show with the Sparks. So y'all continuing to listen to Show Me Love there is amazing.
DJ Tracy Trees on Audience Engagement and Future Plans
00:12:32
Speaker
But my home team on my YouTube channel, thank y'all. I'm almost at 5,000 subscribers. I've been talking basketball here for a while. So thank you so much for tapping in with DJ Trisi Trees on all platforms and listening to The Spark, my personal fan commentary podcast for the l LA Sparks. For those of y'all that are listening in audio, Come on over to my YouTube. You can watch me on video. Um, there's other shorts on there and all kinds of other content. So if you like what you're hearing from DJ Tracy trees, make sure you come to my YouTube channel. That's where you can follow everything. If you just listening in your car and on the audio. Thank y'all so much sparks fans. And I will talk to you again after this weekend. I'll talk to you on Monday. We got two games, one on Friday and one on Sunday. I'll see you then. And until then go sparks.