Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles Sparks came into this matchup leading the series, 3-0 against the Indiana Fever amid various roster changes from both teams, but the difference maker this last regular season faceoff between the two teams was Odyssey Sims, former Sparks player whom scored the last five points for the Fever to beat the Sparks, 76-75, Friday night at Crypto Arena, avoiding series sweep.

Sims didn’t speak much before or after the game on her feelings about returning to her previous team’s home court just that “she’s moved on” though her emotions seem to show on the court, scoring 21 points and celebrating a key three-pointer to tie the game in the last few minutes.

“Odyssey had a great game, tip your hat to her,” coach Lynne Roberts said after the game about playing against some of her former players. “Shay Peddy did a good job too.”

Los Angeles forward Azura Stevens grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled on a putback attempt with 31.6 seconds left. She made 1 of 2 free throws to put Sparks up by one point, 75-74.

“They only had 13 in that [third] quarter, so it wasn’t like that was where we lost the game. But the pace was really fast in that first quarter both ways. I did think the ball got a little sticky in the second quarter…,” Coach Roberts said. “We’ve been a lot better than tonight. Indiana did a great job, and we had 56 field goal attempts, they had 81. And so for us to only lose by one, it’s actually pretty statistically amazing. We shot the ball well. We just gave them too many chances. And I think that’s what the game comes down to.”

Indiana secured an offensive rebound on its next possession and Sims made a short-range floater in the middle of the lane to retake the lead with 13.6 left.

After a timeout advance the ball for Los Angeles, Rickea Jackson initiated the critical play from a dribble hand off before the play broke down and Jackson found Kelsey Plum, who fumbled the pass and loss control of it to Aliyah Boston.

Still the Fever gave Sparks another opportunity when Kelsey Mitchell missed two crucial free throws with 0.4 seconds left but Los Angeles unable to make a play towards the basket as the buzzer sounded off signaling the end of the game.

Fever received multiple opportunities off Sparks 22 turnovers despite holding one of Fever’s top scorer Mitchell below her average 20.7 points to 12 points. Fever were without multiple players including All-Star guard Caitlin Clark (right groin). Boston led the Fever with 22 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and a career-high six steals.

“To me, I don’t know if this answers your question, but the game just comes down, as I always say, to chances,” coach Roberts said. “They had 15 offensive rebounds, and we had 22 turnovers, and we struggled with those two things earlier in the season.”

Stevens scored 17 points, shooting 6 for 9 from the field while Plum and Rae Burrell each added 12 points. Dearica Hamby scored 11 points but had six turnovers while looking ahead on how her team can go forward after this gut-wrenching loss.

“One game at a time, we got Sunday [against] Washington, trying to split the series with them,” Hamby said “We can kind of still control our own destiny. We can go 5-2 and make a shot at this, so [the mentality is] turn the page and keep going.”

Los Angeles (17-20) plays again as mentioned against the Mystics after tonight’s loss puts them two games behind Golden State for the final spot in the playoff race. Indiana (21-18) moved ahead of Seattle (21-19) for sixth place in the league standings with five games remaining.

Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles Sparks were outmatched in height and harmony as the New York Liberty heated up from deep hitting 14 triples, the most made all season by a Sparks’ opponent while Liberty’s dominance in the paint led by Emma Meesseman season-high 24 points and Jonquel Jones’ double-double, 21 points and 11 rebounds drowned whom some WNBA coaches referred as the hottest team amongst the league, scoring a season team high 105 over Sparks 97 for a rematch victory at Crypto arena on Tuesday night.

“I just felt like we were missing a little ‘umph’ today. Defensively, we were not great,” coach Lynne Roberts said. “I just heard Dearica [Hamby] is top 10 [on the Sparks’ all-time scoring list], which is awesome. We just were a little bit off, but we still scored almost 100 and did some good things. But you have to give credit to New York, I thought they did a good job. Their zone slowed us down a little bit.”

Los Angeles’ team leaders, Kelsey Plum scored 26 points and Hamby added 21 points, eight rebounds and four steals but didn’t have enough still with the other two core scorers on the team, Azura Stevens and Rickea Jackson, scoring 17 and 16 respectively, to dispel the magic of defending league champions despite a relative quiet night from their leading scorer Sabrina Ionescu, whom scored 14 points and six assists.

“I think, offensively, we know who we are, we know what we’re good at, we know what gets us away from that,” coach Roberts said. “But New York shot 56% and had 14 threes.”

For Los Angeles (15-17), this is their fifth game in eight days as they fallen short for the third time in their last 10 games.

“One game shouldn’t break us,” Hamby said. “Like I said, we did a lot of things well, and we didn’t play our best basketball, but we have really important games coming up that we should win, and [we’ll] go from there.”

For New York (21-11), whom just loss to the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday, 83-71, bounced back with a historic win for their head coach Sandy Brondello, celebrating her 100th victory to tie as the All-time winningest coach with this franchise.

Veteran and fan favorite, Natasha Cloud made back-to-back buckets to give her team their largest lead, 96-85. Ionescu followed with a layup while 1:22 remaining in the game. Los Angeles failed to convert on offense, turning into another Cloud uncontested drive in the lane for a 102-91 lead.

New York had a trio of twenty-point scorers including starter Leonie Fiebich 20 points while Cloud had 11 points with two assists, two steals and two rebounds. Besides “Stewie” (knee) absence from the game, Isabelle Harrison (concussion), Nyara Sabally (knee) and Kennedy Burke (calf) did not play though Burke was listed as for emergency due to the team being short-handed.

“In the past, the zone made us slow down a little bit, but tonight, we actually did a really good job for the most part,” Plum said.

From Plum’s outlook, Sparks was able to draw a silver lining with their productive offense but might face going back to drawing board for their depth contribution after Cameron Brink did not play in the second half of the game. Live reports on Twitter were disseminated of her noticeably missing off the bench the beginning of the third quarter. Later during the game you could see her having her ankle wrapped up before it was confirmed post-game she tweaked her ankle without any further update.