8/12/25 Postgame Notes & Quotes
WNBA Los Angeles Sparks

8/12/25 Postgame Notes & Quotes

Published on August 13, 2025 under Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
Los Angeles Sparks News Release


New York Liberty (21-11) at Los Angeles Sparks (15-17)

Game 32 | Aug. 12, 2025 | Crypto.com Arena | Los Angeles, CA | Spectrum SportsNet

Attendance: 11,862

Game Leaders:

Liberty

PTS - Emma Meesseman (24)

REB - Jonquel Jones (11)

AST - Sabrina Ionescu (6)

Sparks

PTS - Kelsey Plum (26)

REB - Dearica Hamby (8)

AST - Julie Allemand (6)

First Quarter:

Guard Kelsey Plum scored the Sparks' first seven points of the contest, kicking the game off with a three-pointer

Forward Rickea Jackson hit a three-pointer, assisted by Plum, to make the score 14-12, New York. Forward-center Azurá Stevens followed up on the Sparks' next possession with a three of her own

Jackson buried another triple, assisted by forward Dearica Hamby at the 3:11 mark, making the score 23-21, Liberty. On the next Sparks possession, Hamby scored a putback layup to tie the game at 23 apiece

Plum completed a three-point play to give Los Angeles their second lead of the game with 1:58 to play

Plum scored a game-high 10 first-quarter points, shooting 4-for-5 from the field and 1-for-1 from deep. Jackson scored eight points on 2-for-5 from deep and 3-for-6 overall

The Sparks shot 60.0% (12-for-20 FG) from the field and 40.0% from beyond the arc in the first quarter. There were four lead changes and five ties in the quarter

Second Quarter:

Plum opened second-quarter Sparks scoring with a driving layup at the 8:34 mark

Burrell drained her first three-pointer of the game at the 8:00 mark, making the score 35-34, Sparks advantage

Stevens captured a steal, which led to a fast break, paid off by a layup from Burrell to shorten the Sparks' deficit to 39-38

Hamby made back-to-back layups assisted by Plum and Stevens, respectively, to cut the Sparks deficit to 47-44, New York

In the second quarter, the Sparks outscored the Liberty 10-2 in the paint

There were five lead changes in the quarter

The Sparks shot 50.0% from the field in the first half and notched 24 of their 44 first-half points in the paint alone

Third Quarter:

Plum hit a three-pointer, assisted by Jackson, at the 7:29 mark to shorten the Sparks' deficit to 57-51, Liberty advantage

Hamby finished a transition layup after a steal to further cut into New York's lead, 60-53

Burrell drained a shot from beyond the arc, her second of the game, with 2:59 left in the quarter

Stevens went on a run in the third quarter, responsible for all of Los Angeles' six points from 2:37 to 0:09

The Sparks turned over the ball just once in the third quarter

Fourth Quarter:

Vanloo knocked down her first triple of the game to kick off all scoring in the fourth quarter

Hamby finished a layup of an assist by Plum to narrow the Sparks' deficit to 87-81 with 6:49 left on the clock

Plum completed a gritty three-point play at 3:56 to make the score 96-88, New York advantage

Vanloo cut into the Liberty's lead with a shot beyond the arc, bringing the score to 98-91. She went 2-for-4 from distance in the fourth

Plum led all scorers in the fourth quarter with nine points (2-for-4 FG) and went 5-for-5 from the free throw line

Los Angeles turned the ball over just once in the fourth quarter

The Sparks shot 91.9% (13-for-14) from the free throw line in the second half

Main Takeaways:

Dearica Hamby moved to 10th on the Sparks' all-time scoring list. In the game, the veteran recorded 21 points, eight rebounds, four steals and one block. Hamby also climbed to 26th on the WNBA all-time rebounds list, passing Diana Taurasi, after finishing with eight rebounds

With 26 points (8-for-13 FG, 2-for-5 3PT, 8-for-8 FT), Kelsey Plum is now tied for the most 20+ performances by a Spark in a single season with 19, sharing the honor with Nneka Ogwumike. Plum also tallied five assists and five rebounds

The Sparks shot 46.8% from the floor with 23 assists and just nine turnovers

With one three-pointer (1-for-3 3PT), Azurá Stevens reached 10th in franchise history for made threes, passing Lisa Leslie, with whom she was previously tied Stevens scored 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting and added four assists and three steals

Julie Allemand finished the match with six assists that converted into 15 points, while only turning the ball over once

Los Angeles scored 52 of their 97 points in the paint, going 26-for-44 on attempts under the basket

Pregame Quotes:

Head Coach Lynne Roberts

On what makes the Liberty dangerous even amidst injury problems:

"They're the defending champs, and they have that pedigree. They're really, really good, and well-coached. Everybody in this league goes through times where you're short-handed, but that doesn't change your culture, or who you are as a team. They're used to winning, and every time they put on their uniform, they're not hoping to win, they're executing to win, so I'm not thinking too much about that at all. [They have] Sabrina [Ionescu] and [Jonquel Jones], and then they got [Emma] Meesseman, they have eight but it's a good eight."

On what Cameron Brink's size offers to the Sparks roster:

"What I love about our roster is having diversity in terms of different players bringing different things. I think [Cameron Brink] is super athletic and long, and we all know her shot blocking, but one of the benefits of rehabbing a knee is you get to do a lot of stationary shooting, so she's done a lot of that. You can see the confidence in her outside shot as she continues to get more minutes. I think with her and Dearica [Hamby] and Azurá [Stevens], all three of them are very different, and that's what I like, is that versatility. With her and Rickea [Jackson] at the four, I think that gives us a really fast lineup with five people that can really shoot it and so for the opposing team, that's hard. Cam's obviously a huge part of this season and our future, and I can't wait to integrate her more and more."

On what's contributed Azurá Stevens' success this season:

"If she is not the top vote-getter for Most Improved [Player], something's wrong, right? When you talk about most improved, a lot of times, players will change rosters. So it's a different opportunity, right? If you're coming off the bench, and then you go to another team, and now you're starting- that doesn't really necessarily show improvement, that just shows bigger opportunity, right? Azurá [Stevens]' been here, and her numbers from last year to this year have drastically improved. There's no comparison. From her Effective Field Goal percentage, her True Shooting percentage, three-point shooting, rebounds, everything is significantly statistically up. And what contributes to that [is] she's healthy, obviously, but she's put the work in, and she had a great season at Unrivaled. She came in here ready to roll, and she's completely bought into what we're doing. I think the system has helped her improve in terms of the numbers, as shown. There's so many great players and improvement across the league, [but] there's nobody in the league that's more improved than Azurá Stevens, for sure."

On keeping the focus despite congestion within the WNBA standings:

"I want to be present tense, focused on playing New York, competing against New York, [and] hopefully beating New York. I have learned the hard way over my career [that] the more I look forward and think, 'okay, then we can do this' then we end up tripping in front of [ourselves]. I've learned, honestly, by messing up in that regard, to just really be mentally disciplined to focus on today. I know we play Dallas next after that... I know we have 12 games left. I was told that today and each one is huge, so I stand firm [that] we want to make the playoffs but [with] 12 games, I've got work to do."

Postgame Press Conference Quotes:

Head Coach Lynne Roberts

On the team's performance:

"I just felt like we were missing a little 'umph' today. Defensively, we were not great. Giving up 105 [points]. We still scored 97, I just heard Dearica [Hamby] is top 10 [on the Sparks' all-time scoring list], which is awesome. That's big time. 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."

On the Sparks' performance versus the Liberty:

"We just didn't play well defensively. I think, offensively, we know who we are, we know what we're good at, we know what gets us away from that. But when we play with pace and we share the ball, we're tough to beat. We had 23 assists, and only seven turnovers. But New York shot 56% and had 14 threes. It's tough to beat a team when they shoot like that, and shooting percentage is a direct correlation of shot quality, which means they were getting great shots. So we've got to do a better job defensively, our staff knows that, the players know that. There's not a lot of time to teach and practice, but these guys are pros, and they understand, and I have not lost an ounce of faith or confidence in them. [It was] just a tough night for us tonight, but this is that part of the season, and again, you gotta give New York credit, they came to play, they made shots, they played well. They beat us. And so, the only thing we can do is get up and re-attack. We play at Dallas on Friday, and hopefully we play better defensively on Friday."

Dearica Hamby

On bouncing back from the close loss:

"[We plan to] just continue the momentum we've had the last 12 games. One game shouldn't break us. 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."

Kelsey Plum

On what threw the Sparks off offensively:

"I think it came down to them scoring 105 points. 97 is a lot of points. 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."

What's Next?:

The Sparks hit the road for a two-game trip, against the Dallas Wings Aug. 15 (4:30 p.m. PT) and Washington Mystics Aug. 17 (12 p.m. PT).

Check out the Los Angeles Sparks Statistics



Women's National Basketball Association Stories from August 13, 2025


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