Sparks resume season against Liberty at home as they retire Milton-Jones' jersey

LOS ANGELES — The league is back from All-Star Weekend.

It was a good break for some of the players and coaches. Some joined the madness in Chicago. Some decided to stay low for the weekend and reset.

"Yeah, a little something. I was in Chicago for one day," Sparks guard Erica Wheeler said. "Did something with Google. Then I went to Cabo with my family."

"Actually, we didn't go anywhere," Sparks forward Emma Cannon said. "I was able to spend time every day with my family and that was great. We did a lot of kids stuff so that was cool."

"I just hung out with family, you know. Watched… I saw the Odyssey," Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said, referring to the Greek fantasy film that just came out in theaters.

While the break was nice, what hasn't gone away for the Los Angeles Sparks was their losing streak. They've been defeated in their last five games, bringing their record down to 10-16. The playoffs seem so far away at this point of the season.

"You keep that in the rearview mirror. The past is the past," Cannon said about the losing streak. "You learn from your mistakes and you only get better. I could say that the last couple of games that we did lose, we were able to learn from them. It's not like we were getting blown out or anything crazy. But it was just the fact that we were just right there. So just learning how to finish games."

"I'm not positive about it," Wheeler said, who, like Cannon, has a cheery personality. "I'm not happy about it. Definitely, we want to win games but it's more so the luxury we have is that we have a game the next day or the next two days. So just kind of move on that way. You can't hang your head on the game to before because you've got to prepare for the next one. So that's the positive in it but I'm not positive about taking these Ls. I must tell you that."

"We have to go one at a time," Roberts said. "We got to just talk about New York. We've got to get some momentum. Having Kelsey (Plum) back when she's back will be…  you know, we were (7-5) with her. Let's not lose the sight of that. And I do feel like people have gotten more comfortable as we just have lost some key games in the last couple minutes. So we're not talking about what our record is. We're talking about beating New York, doing everything we can to beat New York. A lot has changed since she was playing."

Yes, the opponents. The New York Liberty. They're 15-12 overall after winning their last two games. But they've had a rough go at the season themselves.

Still, the Liberty have won it all recently. So that team has what it takes to make another run. After all, they have excellent players in Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones.

"There's a lot of keys," Coach Roberts said about going against the Liberty. "They're huge. So we've got to play with pace, use our speed, read them really well, and defend as we fall in. Those are probably the three things right now."

"We just got to stay silent on our defensive end and then play our game on offense," Cannon said.

"They're a team that's super sexy. They want to run their sh-t," Wheeler replied. "They want to get their sense in. And we've just got to be a dogfight. We can't come in there trying to play their game because that's what they do. We can't come in there not wanting to bump and be aggressive. We've got to be aggressive. We've got to initiate from the start."

The last time these two teams played each other, Nneka Ogwumike made the game-winning three at the buzzer in the emotional 30th Season Anniversary Game. The Sparks came back from 17 down to get the W. 

But L.A. knows they've had trouble finishing games as of late. And they're going to have to figure it out without Plum, who is still deemed out with her leg injury.

"It gets rough," Wheeler admitted. "Just being able to find those moments to be focused and lock in on those moments because no team is blowing us out, man. We're in these games. We've just got to lock in the last four minutes."

"If you lose four games, which I can argue to say four of the five in the last two minutes, it's end-of-game execution," Roberts said, bringing up that familiar term again. "Being really dialed in to what the scout was, what we're supposed to do on different coverages. You have to be a heightened focus and I think we lost a little bit of focus. Maybe it's fatigue, whatever. But just be better in those last couple minutes of really executing. That's when it has to be the most important, what you're doing, what you're supposed to be doing."

Cannon put it in another outlook as they set out for the second half of the season.

"After All-Star, you know, it's a brand new season," Cannon said. "So, yes, we have our record, what our record is now. But I feel like right now, if we go into it with the mindset and the perspective of 0-0, anything is possible."

The Sparks will also retire the jersey of legend DeLisha Milton-Jones on Tuesday night. Milton-Jones also attended the Anniversary Game last month.

"Everything that we were playing for, we're looking at it right now in real time, in 4D," Milton-Jones said last month of the current WNBA. "We're seeing them live out everything that we were hoping the league would become. And then some."

Another special occasion for the Sparks against the Liberty. Maybe this is the push the Sparks need to set the tone for the back half of the 2026 campaign.