Sparks got it together a little too late
WNBA
After beginning the year erratically, they started playing well at the end of the season and acquitted themselves well in the playoffs despite losing.
Kathy Goodman teaches high school English and social studies, but she could probably host a seminar on the importance of team chemistry.
As co-owner of the Sparks, she welcomed five new starters this season, several key reserves and two assistant coaches. Among the newcomers were Lisa Leslie, a three-time league most valuable player who sat out the previous season, rookie Candace Parker, the league's No. 1 overall draft pick, and DeLisha Milton-Jones, an important member of the Sparks' championship teams in 2001 and 2002.
Though the group had never played together, a majority of the league's general managers predicted before the season that the Sparks would win the WNBA title.
At times this season, they looked like champions. At other times, far from it. The Sparks ended the regular season somewhere in the middle, with a 20-14 record and a third-place finish in the Western Conference.
They seemed to find their groove after the Olympic break, however, winning five of their final seven games and then ousting the Seattle Storm -- albeit a team without its dominant center Lauren Jackson -- in the first round of the playoffs.
On Saturday, the Sparks were 1.3 seconds away from advancing to the WNBA finals, but lost when San Antonio forward Sophia Young made an off-balance shot that twice banked off the backboard.
On Sunday, in the deciding Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, San Antonio defeated the Sparks behind a 35-point effort from point guard Becky Hammon, the second-best scoring effort in WNBA playoff history.
Those two games were difficult losses, but at least the Sparks were no longer beating themselves -- something they did off and on this season.
"What we said going into that Game 3 is, [San Antonio] will have to play the best basketball game they've ever played," Goodman said.
The most telling sign that the Sparks were coming together, she added, was the rise in assists and the drop in turnovers. In the Sparks' victory over San Antonio in Game 1, the Sparks had a season-high 27 assists and 13 turnovers.
"Turnovers are often the result of not knowing which way someone is going to cut," Goodman said. "Chemistry can solve those types of problems."
Goodman and Christofferson also point to a high-low post play that Leslie and Parker began to perfect.
"After the Olympic break, that's when everyone sort of came together," Christofferson said. "It was really enjoyable watching them because you could just see flashes of how good they're going to be."
