LOS ANGELES — It is now or never for the Sparks, who must win their final three games if they want a chance to avoid missing the playoffs for a fifth straight season.
The Sparks, who are in ninth place and two games behind the Seattle Storm for the league’s eighth and final playoff spot, will be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to Dallas Sunday at home. They must also defeat the Mercury in Phoenix on Sept. 9 and the Las Vegas Aces on Sept. 11 at Crypto.com Arena.
They are 3-0 against the Wings this season, but the last two victories have come by only one point, including an 81-80 win that saw rookie guard Paige Bueckers, the No. 1 pick from UConn in the 2025 draft, drop a career-high 44 points Aug. 20 at Crypto.com Arena.
“It’s never over until it’s over with this group,” said Sparks assistant coach Mike Neighbors, who spoke to reporters after Friday’s 104-85 loss in Atlanta in place of head coach Lynne Roberts after the team disclosed she was having a family emergency.
The Sparks (19-22) are coming off consecutive losses to the Dream. Dearica Hamby had a team-high 26 points Friday – her fourth consecutive games with 20 or more points – and All-Star guard Kelsey Plum scored 20 points. Second-year forward Rickea Jackson had 17.
The trio combined for 43 of the Sparks’ 52 first-half points against Atlanta but they trailed by four at halftime.
“I think we closed the game in the third quarter, we tied it back up (64-64 with 5:14 left in the third quarter) and then they hit two 3’s and a layup within a minute – I want to say a minute – and I think it kind of just took the air out of us,” Hamby said.
The Sparks could not stop Atlanta guard Rhyne Howard, who finished with a game-high 37 points, primarily on 9-of-17 shooting from 3-point range.
With three games left in the regular season, the Sparks must win out and finish 22-22 if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive.
While the Sparks do have head-to-head tiebreakers over Indiana and Seattle, just winning their last three games might not be enough.
The Sparks also need Seattle to lose their regular-season finale at home to Golden State on Tuesday or Indiana to lose their final two games to Washington on Saturday and Minnesota on Tuesday.
A win by Seattle and a win by Indiana would automatically eliminate the Sparks from playoff contention and extend the organization’s longest postseason drought in team history to five seasons.
Neighbors said he believes the Sparks will rally.
“You have a great locker room in there,” Neighbors said. “They’ll rally around each other. They’ve done it repeatedly throughout the year. We’ve battled a lot of adversity from Day One with injuries and we’ve stuck together. There’s never a doubt that this group will find a way.”
If the Sparks do not make the playoffs, the team will not have the benefit of a lottery pick in the 2026 draft. The Sparks sent that first-round pick to Seattle for guard Kia Nurse, who is no longer with the team, and the No. 4 pick in the 2024 draft, which the team used to draft Jackson.
WINGS (9-33) AT SPARKS (19-22)
When: 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: Spectrum SportsNet