Forty-nine seconds. That’s all it took for the Seattle Storm’s Flau’jae Johnson to fire off a 27-foot three-point jumper to take the lead. In less than a minute, she sank the Sparks’ hopes of beating one of the worst teams in the WNBA, leaving 39 more minutes for the Sparks to consider just how the team got there.
Johnson, already the main act in Seattle, bolstered her WNBA Rookie of the Year case by scoring 23 points as the Storm defeat the Sparks Monday night 82-62 at Crypto.com Arena.
Each time the Storm drove down the court, there was Johnson, her ponytail fluttering as she skirted around the arc before driving into the paint, nonchalantly tossing up layups like it were still shootaround. Not even the relentless defense chants summoned from the Sparks MCs stopped her.
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And while her teammates supplied Johnson with enough passes to at one point secure a 13-point lead, the Sparks (8-11) lost because the team couldn’t build enough momentum.
In the end, Seattle outmaneuvered and outbodied the Sparks, snatching steals and flipping the ball around the perimeter until the Storm fired off a shot. Even when the ball bounced off the rim or backboard, Johnson or Storm center Dominique Malonga, who had nine rebounds, was there, hoisting the basketball away from the closest white jersey.
In comparison, the Sparks, without an offensive rebound until the end of the third quarter, were forced to make perfect shots, though that was far from the team’s grasp. Dearica Hamby, who went six for nine, led the team with 17 points, but even she couldn’t toe-to-toe with Johnson alone. Worse, the Sparks’ abysmal 17.2 three-point percentage all but abandoned that avenue of attack, leaving the team to face Malonga in the paint.
The Sparks struggled to transition to the basket, giving up 19 turnovers resulting in 25 free baskets. So as the Sparks fell further behind, the holes left by the injured Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum widened.
In the Sparks’ prior matchup against the Storm a month ago, the two had totaled 34 points in the 88-83 nail-biting win. But in Monday’s game, the Sparks could only cling to the game with clenched fists as the gap widened.
By the end, the Sparks spent the game playing catch-up, never regaining the lead after surrendering it in the first 49 seconds to Johnson.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
