Kathy Goodman: Sparks look like a different team

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So, if you shoot 45% for the game, 50% from beyond the arc and out-rebound your opponent, and one of your guards records a double-double (with 17 points and 11 rebounds), that sounds like a game you should win. Unless, of course, you have 21 turnovers that lead to 21 points for your opponent. And their turnover and assist numbers look eerily similar to yours, but reversed (we had 21 turnovers and 11 assists; they had 21 assists and 10 turnovers.)

Not sure what I was watching tonight in the Mohegan Sun Casino, but it did not look much like Sparks basketball. We definitely played close in the first quarter. That was a welcome relief given our last two starts. We scored 20 points in the first quarter and shot 53.3%. We never led, but when the Sun leaked out to a seven-point lead, we quickly shut them back down to a two-point lead by the end of the quarter. I was looking to the second quarter for the game to break open.

For the first five minutes of the second quarter it was more of the same. Again, the Sparks couldn’t get ahead, but they didn’t let the Sun out of reach — never falling behind by more than two baskets. And then, finally, with about three and a half minutes left in the half, the Sun went on a 13-0 scoring run. Only Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton’s buzzer-beating three-point basket ended the Sparks’ drought, but it still left us down by 13 at the half.

Well, I thought, we’ve been down before. Much more than this. I was wearing my lucky Sparks shoes; I had won money at the Casino; I was with my parents, who had never seen the Sparks lose live. Clearly these were all signs that all would turn out OK. But we were on ESPN. That’s not usually good for us. I was going to get our stats person to compile our win-loss record on ESPN games, but I was worried it would just depress me, so I let it go. Instead I wondered which Sparks team I was going to see in the second half — the one that beat New York or the one that lost to Washington.

What I saw in the second half was the same team that played in the first quarter against Connecticut. We played even in the third quarter, though it didn’t seem that way. My nephew’s friend said to me, “Well, that wasn’t bad, we came back at the end of that quarter.” I had to point out to him that we had merely cut the 20-point deficit we had let develop back to the 13-point hole we had dug in the first half. So, by the end of the third, all we were was more tired but no closer to winning than we had been at the end of the first half. In the fourth quarter we outscored the Sun by two. Again, the simple arithmetic made it clear that playing them even in the second half wasn’t going to help us.

And so it goes. Another loss on the road. Perhaps the curse was only temporarily lifted in New York. All I know is we have another four road games before we play at home, so we better figure it out. We have a long trip home Wednesday and a week at home before we hit Seattle. I remember the last time we played Seattle. Let’s do that again.

-- Kathy Goodman

Kathy Goodman is a co-owner of the Sparks.