Kathy Goodman: And the Sparks are moving on
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Saturday was a dreary day in Seattle. It was cold and wet, raining on and off all day. It sort of matched my mood. Friday night, with 10 seconds left in the game, I had already imagined being back in the nice dry heat of an L.A. September. When I woke up this morning, though, the sky was blue with nice fluffy clouds, and that matched my mood as well. The Sparks haven’t done anything easy all summer long and why should the first round of the playoffs be any different? The Seattle Storm at full strength might be a contender, but they were just too beat up at this point. Friday night had given them a lift, but I just didn’t see us losing today. I felt good.
I saw Penny Toler when I went down for breakfast. “What do you think?” I asked her. “We got this,” she responded. I felt the same way. I saw Marianne Stanley a little later. “Play hard, “ I said. “You know they will,” she responded. Never was I so happy the game was at 2pm instead of at night. I couldn’t have waited that long. I just wanted this game to start. If we played basketball the way we CAN play basketball, no one was going to stop us. If we let the Storm get in our head, if we let them set the tempo of the game, if we spent too much time thinking about 10 seconds that happened two days ago, well ...
I took the team bus to the arena. When we got there, I stood up and asked for everyone’s attention. I said, “My high school has a dress code. If the Sparks win, the students have free dress. If you have nothing else to play for, think about 300 teenagers who want to wear jeans to school tomorrow. They’re all rooting for you!” Everyone smiled and then got serious again. I got out of their way.
The game started as I hoped it would. We came out with intensity, and we never looked back. Ahead by seven at the end of the first quarter, we stretched it to 16 at halftime. We had shut down Seattle’s perimeter game — they had no three-pointers in the first half — and we had shared the ball effectively. We had nine assists in the first half; they had nine turnovers. I e-mailed my mother, “Let’s keep this lead in the third quarter!”
By the end of the third, I was cautiously optimistic. We were up by 20 and we just had to be vigilant. I hoped we had learned our lesson on Friday that the game was in fact a full 40 minutes long. We needed to play all of those minutes, every one of the seconds.
With two minutes left in the game, the Storm had cut our lead to 11. If I hadn’t been a Sparks fan for 13 years, I would have been cavalier. But I started to get a little nervous. I knew that was a very long time in Sparks basketball. Seattle was playing for their lives, and we needed to do more than just play not to lose.
And then it was over. With less than 40 seconds left, Sue Bird and Swin Cash were subbed out of the game to the ovation they richly deserved from their home crowd. The Sparks kept their head and held onto the ball. We ended the game with 20 assists on 25 made baskets and outshooting Seattle from the perimeter. Our starting five (Noelle Quinn and Olympians) all came up big, and Betty Lennox made her presence known. Candace Parker may not have had a double-double, but her 22 points, eight rebounds, three blocks and two assists were fine with me. Quinn recovered quite well from Friday night to log seven assists and nine points. Tina Thompson scored 12 and added five assists and six rebounds. Lisa Leslie got in foul trouble early, but still found a way to score 13 points and grab eight rebounds. We had done what we came to do.
In short, we’re moving on. See you Wednesday.
-- Kathy Goodman
Goodman is co-owner of the Sparks.