Kathy Goodman: Getting closer

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At the end of the third quarter in Tuesday’s Sparks game against the Tulsa Shock, I was on my way to visit one of the suites at Staples Center. I walked past the press section, and one of the reporters asked me, ‘So, is this the complete game you were looking for?’ We were up by 10 points at the end of the third, having led the whole quarter. I admit I was feeling pretty good about our chances but said, ‘Ask me again in 10 minutes. We’ll see what happens in the fourth quarter, but so far, so good!’

I wandered up to the suite as I watched our lead hover in the double digits through the next four minutes of game time. I was shaking hands and feeling good, and then, suddenly, with four minutes left, it was a four-point game.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I remarked, as there was a timeout on the floor with 2 1/2 minutes left in the game and the Sparks’ lead remained just four. By the time I got back down to the event level, I was sending a text to [fellow Sparks co-owner] Carla Christofferson that said, “Seriously? Is this really a two point game?!”

For a moment, the Shock had the lead. When there was less than a second to go, I watched Tulsa’s Ivory Latta launch a three-pointer at the buzzer that bounced on the rim and slid off, sending us into overtime. It wasn’t the complete game I was looking for, but when we powered through overtime and ended the game with an 86-83, at least I thought we were getting closer.

In the 45 minutes we ended up playing, I could definitely find 40 minutes I would hold onto to call a complete game — they just weren’t in a row. To be honest, if I could replace the last five minutes of the fourth quarter with the five minutes of overtime, I would be fine with that. But, let’s face it, a win is a win, whether by one point or double digits. So I was happy with the outcome, as ugly as it was getting there.

If I called out one player, it should be DeLisha Milton-Jones, who led the scoring with 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting, including 50% from three-point range. If I called out one team improvement, it would be that we took great care of the ball, with only 13 turnovers in 45 minutes of play (compared with the Shock’s 22). Kristi Toliver was once again our leading bench scorer, with 15 points, and Tina Thompson had another big scoring game, with 15. The player who came out on fire in the first quarter and had ice in her veins at the end of overtime was Ticha Penicheiro. In the first quarter alone, she had six assists and four steals. In overtime, it was her made free throws that sealed our victory.

I went to our vice president and general manager, Penny Toler, after the game to ask her what our franchise record was for assists in a game since Ticha had dished out a stellar 13. Penny likes to tease me for yelling at her when I was a season ticket-holder and she was a player for shooting too much and not passing enough. She always pushes me to look up her assist stats to demonstrate her unselfishness. It was an old argument between us, so when I asked her about the franchise assist record, she first demurred a bit, saying she wasn’t sure and then finally said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think I have the single-game assist record for the Sparks. Look it up.” I laughed and said, “If you scored more assists in a game than Ticha did in this game, I’ll definitely put that in my blog!” I looked it up. The Sparks’ franchise record for assists in a single game is held by Penny Toler: 14 assists in a game against the Utah Starzz (now the San Antonio Silver Stars) in 1998. Ticha was close, and played a great game overall, but Penny still has the record!

We did not play a complete game Tuesday, but we did a lot of things right. We played together (21 assists on 30 baskets) and took better care of the basketball (13 total turnovers). Four of our players were in double figures for scoring: DeLisha Milton-Jones (23), Tina Thompson (15), Ticha Penicheiro (10) and Kristi Toliver (15). We stayed mentally tough at the end, not getting rattled by our lost lead. On the other hand, we still got out-rebounded and let Tulsa’s bench do way too much damage (outscoring us 43-26), but we shut down their three-point shooting (which killed us in the last two games). If you were to slate that five minutes of overtime in place of the five minutes in the fourth quarter when Tulsa went on a 19-4 run to take the lead for the first time since the first half, I would say we played a complete game.

We’re getting closer — it just took us 45 minutes to play a complete 40 minutes.

-- Kathy Goodman, co-owner of the Sparks