The Los Angeles Sparks got back in the win column in emphatic fashion on Thursday night, beating the Indiana Fever 98-63. It was the second-largest margin of victory this season, falling one point short of the Las Vegas Aces’ 113-77 win over the Indiana Fever.
The Indiana Fever have the worst record in the WNBA 1-9 and have lost five consecutive games. Each of their last five losses has come by a 15-point or more margin of defeat including three losses by more than 20 points.
The Los Angeles Sparks, on the other hand, improve to 3-3 winning three of their last four games since suffering a 28-point loss to the Las Vegas Aces.
Kristi Toliver led the Sparks scoring a season-high 22 points on 67% shooting knocking down three 3-pointers. Erica Wheeler and Bria Holmes each contributed 14 points with the former adding five assists and two steals and the latter coming off the bench to add seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.
After a rough start to the season averaging just 7.3 points on 28% shooting, Te’a Cooper got out of her shooting funk scoring 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting. Meanwhile, Nia Coffey scored 13 points on a perfect 4-for-4 shooting including three 3-pointers.
Kelsey Mitchell led the Fever with 15 points followed by Tiffany Mitchell and Jantel Lavender who each contributed 10 points. Teaira McCowan followed up a game in which she put together an all-around stat line with a quiet six points and five rebounds on 3-for-8 shooting.
The Fever started strong, leading 12-10 four minutes into the first quarter. This prompted the Sparks to finish the quarter on a 15-2 run with the Fever committing seven turnovers in the final six minutes.
The Sparks continued to put the pressure on the Fever pushing their lead to 23 points at halftime. Kristi Toliver scored 12 points in the second quarter outscoring the Fever alone in the period. The Sparks would continue to build their lead peaking in the fourth quarter when they led by as many as 38 points.
The disparity in 3-point shooting and turnovers were the biggest factors in the Sparks’ victory. The Sparks made a season-high 14 3-pointers shooting a season-high 50% from three to the Fever’s six 3-pointers on 30% shooting. Also, the Fever committed almost as many first-quarter turnovers (7) as the Sparks did for the entire game (8).