Sparks begin three-game home stand against Aces
Rey Moralde
Host · Writer
LOS ANGELES — The Sparks are back to the friendly confines of Crypto.Com Arena after a four-game road trip.
The great news is that they went 3-1.
But of course, they wanted more. The Sparks fell short against the Connecticut Sun and could've swept the trip. But they'll take what they can get.
And hey, what do you know? The Sparks draw the Aces again on Tuesday! It's their third game against each other in three weeks.
"So we're looking at it just as a series," Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts said. "This is a little series (within the season). We're 1-1 and this is the last time we'll play them at home. So the challenges are obviously Vegas, right? And playing the same team in nine games three times, who won the championship three out of the last four years. That's the challenge. The good thing is, is it's exposing, right? You see what you're good at. You see what you're not. So you get a versus maybe a, quote, unquote, easier. They're not easy, so it's not even the right word, but just a different victory. You learn from these whether you win or lose. I think that's the positive."
"It's going to be tough, man. It's going to be a dogfight," Sparks guard Erica Wheeler added. "It's one of those games where you just got to bring your pride. It's just like a series. They won one, we won one. It's just who's going to bring their pride and who's going to bring their heart to push through the pain that we all are feeling, the tiredness that we all are feeling. The mental toughness has to kick in (on Tuesday night)."
Some may not push through that pain for the Aces on Tuesday as both Jewell Loyd and Chennedy Carter are listed as questionable. Kelsey Plum will still be out for the Sparks; she was huge in the Sparks' win against the Aces on May 23rd with 38 points, which is the most points she's scored since joining Los Angeles.
Roberts expects the rookies to continue to step up with Plum out.
"Just continued, like, again, process-driven," Roberts said. "Continued development and growth and maturity and decision-making and confidence and all those things. All the work they do now, before practice, after practice… you're ready. You've got to go out there with the mindset of, you know, this very different mindset of, I'm going to play to not make a mistake versus I'm going to play to my potential. So don't play that way. Play to your potential. Do what you're good at. Stay away from what you know you're not great at in this league yet. Just that self-awareness and confidence."
Before the road trip, the Sparks were 1-3. They were able to fix some warts and were a few plays short of sweeping the four-game trek. The Sparks are currently 4-4 in a very competitive league.
"If you would have asked me, like, hey, you're going to go 3-1 in these four games, I would have been like, okay," Roberts said. "I think just their resiliency, they show up the same way every day. They really do. You don't have to pick them up off the mat. You don't have to spend a lot of time, you know, big motivational speeches or anything like that. They get it. I think that's the most encouraging thing. When you talk about how good the league is and how close it is, you just want a team that keeps getting better and keeps getting up to fight another day."
"You got to get the job done, man. I think that's the biggest thing. This is our job," Wheeler said, who made the tiebreaking three late in the previous game against the Aces. "Yes, I heard it. The snake is down. And if we know, like, hell, (Plum) would do anything to be back with us. So I think the sense of urgency just stepped up. We fell short one but it's just a lesson to all. Like, yeah, we lost, but I don't see it as a loss. I see it as a lesson."
The Aces are 5-3 overall but have played the majority of the games on the road; they are 5-1 away from Las Vegas. A'ja Wilson will always be a handful but the Sparks have to worry about NaLyssa Smith, who went for 22 points and nine boards in their previous match-up. Jackie Young did go scoreless in that game but that's likely not going to happen on Tuesday night.
The Sparks did not have Nneka Ogwumike for their last match-up against the Aces. She'll be available for Tuesday. In the meantime, these Sparks are road warriors themselves, having gone 3-1 in that previous trip. They went 1-3 in the four-game home stand to start the 2026 season.
"(What is it about the road) that we're better at? I don't know," Roberts said about the team being better on the road. "The natural obvious answer, I don't know if it's true, is there's just no distractions. You kind of have to lock arms together. It's a little more us against the world mentality. That could be it. But we've got to protect home court too. If we want to make a run at this thing, we've got to win at home."
And they have an opportunity, too, with the next three games in L.A. Tuesday will be indeed challenging as it's never easy to go against the standard of the league, the Las Vegas Aces.
