Los Angeles Sparks Basketball Team

Lisa Leslie remembers the man's words but not his name and for that she apologizes. Leslie was a second grader, terribly tall, terribly shy. The man came to her school assembly and began to speak. "He started out by saying something like, 'I'm not going to quiet you down. If I'm here to speak to just one person, I've done my job.' "I don't know why," Leslie says, "but I focused in on this man and he spoke.

Same opponent. Different location. Same result. After losing to the Sparks in the teams' season opener on Friday, the Seattle Storm spent three days, including a shoot-around earlier Tuesday, working on jelling with one another offensively and playing more aggressive defensively. Yet, as if on cue in a rematch at Staples Center, glitches by Seattle helped trigger the Sparks' 74-61 victory Tuesday night. Candace Parker scored 21 points and Kristi Toliver had 18 for the Sparks.

Restitution paid by a cruise ship line for causing an oil spill in Los Angeles Harbor will help expand girls basketball programs in Watts and Wilmington, Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn said Tuesday. Hahn presented a $20,000 check to the basketball programs run by a partnership between the Amateur Athletic Foundation and the Watts / Willowbrook and Wilmington Boys and Girls Clubs. The Los Angeles Sparks women's basketball team will support the program by conducting clinics at the two clubs.

Before its game Saturday night against Sporting Kansas City in Carson, the Galaxy was one-third of the way through its 16th Major League Soccer season. But whether that season would end with the team in the championship match, MLS Cup 2011 at the Home Depot Center on Nov. 20, was debatable. "It's important that we try to reach it because I think it would be heartbreaking for us if we're not in that final," midfielder David Beckham said Friday. The way things are going, Beckham and Co. are nowhere close to being a lock to make it to the title game.

The WNBA suspended five Sparks players, including Candace Parker and Lisa Leslie, and five Detroit Shock players and assistant coach Rick Mahorn Thursday for their involvement in an on-court fight in Tuesday's game. As a result, the Sparks were without four starters, including Olympians Parker, Leslie and DeLisha Milton-Jones for their game against the Connecticut Sun on Thursday night at Mohegan Sun Arena. The Sparks lost, 87-61, to the Sun.

At 5-feet-11 and 203 pounds, Latasha Byears epitomized the power in power forward. She used her girth to set body-crunching picks that freed up Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie to score. On defense, she snatched rebounds and dogged the opponent's best shooter. If a player physically rubbed her or a teammate the wrong way, Byears exacted payback, committing hard fouls while helping the Sparks win back-to-back championships.

Forward Rhonda Mapp of the Sparks has been dismissed from the WNBA and must serve a two-year suspension for violating the league's drug policy, according to a two-sentence statement issued Friday by the league's New York office. Mapp, 33, is the first player the league has ousted for a drug policy violation. She had rejoined the Sparks this season after sitting out last year because of a contract dispute. She appeared in 24 games, four of them starts, averaging 2.6 points and 2.8 rebounds.

An investor group led by Los Angeles lawyers Katherine Goodman and Carla Christofferson is buying the Sparks from Lakers owner Jerry Buss for $10 million, sources confirmed Tuesday night. The NBA Board of Governors was expected to vote today to approve the sale of the two-time WNBA champions, sources said. The Sparks have scheduled a Thursday news conference.

Former Spark forward Latasha Byears, abruptly released by the team two months ago, is one of several people under investigation by L.A. County Sheriff's detectives in the alleged sexual assault of a former Spark player. According to sources familiar with the investigation, Byears, 30, and a man with no connection to the team allegedly took part in an attack on the player, who has not been identified.

Nikki Teasley, a 2004 All-Star point guard who had been on the WNBA's injured list since Aug. 1, was added to the Sparks' playoff roster Sunday. Teasley, averaging 7.4 points and 3.7 assists, had sat out with plantar faciitis in her right foot.

Seattle — Tanisha Wright hit a 13-foot baseline jumper with 50 seconds left to give the Seattle Storm a 76-75 win over the Sparks in the regular-season finale for both teams Saturday night. The Storm finished 17-0 at home, a league record. The Sparks were 16-0 in 2001. The Storm also tied the 2001 Sparks for most regular-season victories. Camille Little scored a career-high 22 points and Lauren Jackson added 21 to lead Seattle (28-6), which won its third straight. Tina Thompson scored 20 points, Noelle Quinn had 18 and DeLisha Milton-Jones had 15 for Los Angeles (13-21)

Former Minnesota Lynx Coach Jennifer Gillom, who once starred at the University of Mississippi and won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, was named the Sparks' coach Monday, ending a months-long search for a successor to Michael Cooper. Gillom played seven seasons in the WNBA: six with the Phoenix Mercury and her final season, 2003, with the Sparks, in which she was a teammate of forward DeLisha Milton-Jones. The job search began as soon as the season ended, although it had been known since May that Cooper, who led the Sparks to two WNBA championships, was leaving to coach the USC women's basketball team.

Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury are heading to the WNBA finals, and Lisa Leslie is heading off to retirement. Taurasi scored 15 of her 21 points in the second half and added seven rebounds and three assists to lead the Mercury past the Sparks, 85-74, on Saturday night in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals. The Mercury, seeded No. 1 in the West, will open the best-of-five WNBA finals at home Tuesday against Indiana, top-seeded in the East and a 72-67 winner over Detroit earlier Saturday.

After the final buzzer sounded, Sparks forward Candace Parker untucked her jersey in frustration. She had seen the Sparks fluctuate between two phases: allowing Phoenix to dictate its fastbreak system before the Sparks fought to chip away the deficit. The end result -- a 103-94 Game 1 loss Wednesday to the Mercury in the Western Conference finals in front of 6,389 at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion -- was a reflection of what Parker described as "allowing them to play their game." It also resembled a broader theme, one she and other teammates noticed throughout the season when the Sparks sputtered to an 8-13 record despite boasting five Olympians.

This was the matchup Lisa Leslie had hoped the Sparks wouldn't have in the first round of the WNBA postseason. Yet, she also knew that facing the Phoenix Mercury was inevitable if the Sparks were going to win the West. The inevitable is now. Phoenix, seeded No. 1 in the West, visits the Sparks for Game 1 of the Western Conference finals at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion tonight, boasting the league's top offense (92.8 points per game). "I don't have any magical formula where we do one, two or three things and we'll win," said Leslie, who could be playing in her last home game before retiring after a storied 13-year career.

After playing for Pat Riley in the Lakers' Showtime era, Sparks Coach Michael Cooper says he has followed one philosophy regarding the postseason. "Coach Riley used to say the playoffs don't start until the other team wins on the other team's home court," said Cooper, whose team has a 1-0 lead entering Game 2 tonight at Seattle in the Western Conference's best-of-three semifinals. "We're trying to get this second one and hopefully we won't have to make adjustments after that."

Six years ago, Sparks General Manager Penny Toler flew to Oregon to watch her WNBA team play the Portland Fire. Before the game, though, she had a stop to make. Her college coach Michael Abraham was nearby, off Highway 18 on Ballston Road. He had been an assistant coach at Long Beach State, where she starred 20 years ago. His last job, she knew only too well, was head coach at Cal State Northridge. When Toler arrived, she walked along the deep green lawn toward a low-slung building.

The new owners of the Sparks walked right past the floor seats set aside for them last Saturday night in Arco Arena. Carla Christofferson and Kathy Goodman, longtime Sparks season ticket-holders, instead veered to their right and climbed up an aisle behind the Sparks bench toward the upper reaches of the arena's lower bowl, cheerily settling in among two busloads of Sparks fans who had made the trip from Southern California.

While the team huddled together, Sparks Coach Michael Cooper was about to rip into his players. Before he could, though, his players took care of it. They had a 12-point lead with five minutes 14 seconds remaining in Game 1 of their best-of-three Western Conference semifinals matchup with Seattle. But with the way the Storm kept chipping away at their lead, nothing was safe. Hence, the discussion during a timeout. "Sometimes the team has to do that and take responsibility like a veteran team like we do," Cooper said.

It became the turning point of her final WNBA season. In a locker-room meeting, three-time MVP Lisa Leslie went from teammate to teammate and dissected how each could help turn things around for the struggling Sparks. That included herself. "I asked each person, 'Is it OK for me to be honest with you? You guys can be honest with me,' " Leslie said. " 'If I'm not working hard and I'm not bringing it, tell me.' " The Sparks (18-16) closed out the regular season winning 10 of their last 13 games and secured a No. 3 seeding in the Western Conference playoffs.