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Sabrina Ionescu scored eight of her 20 points in the final 2:18 and the Liberty rallied from a 15-point deficit in the third quarter to beat the Los Angeles Sparks 64-61 on Wednesday night.
The Liberty (13-18) earned two wins over the Sparks (12-19) in the span of 24 hours, sweeping the back-to-back set. New York had a much tougher time than its 102-73 victory a night earlier to stay in the playoff hunt.
Coming into Wednesday night’s games, one game separated the seventh through 11th places in the standings. With the win, New York moved into a tie with Phoenix for seventh.
Los Angeles finally ended its nearly 7-minute scoreless drought and got the lead back up to 55-47 before New York scored 13 of the next 17 points to take its first lead of the game on two free throws by Ionescu with 1:14 left.
After a Los Angeles miss, Ionescu was fouled shooting a 3-pointer with 34.1 seconds left. She made two of three to give the Liberty a 62-59 advantage.
Jordin Canada was fouled driving to the basket and made both free throws to get the Sparks within one with 29.6 left.
After a timeout, Ionescu worked the clock down before driving into the lane and banking in a shot from the free throw line with 6.9 seconds left.
Sab for Thhhrrreeee‼️ <a href=”https://t.co/B0xq0fjg4A”>pic.twitter.com/B0xq0fjg4A</a>
—@nyliberty
Los Angeles had one last chance but Lexie Brown missed a 3-pointer from the wing just before the buzzer.
Nneka Ogwumike scored 19 points to lead Los Angeles.
The Sparks jumped out to a 24-8 lead after the first quarter as Ogwumike scored seven points. She moved past Swin Cash for 20th on the league’s all-time scoring list. Ogwumike has 5,137 points now in her career.
New York rallied to within seven late in the first half before Los Angeles scored the final four points to take an 11-point lead into the break.
Dream’s Howard helps hand Fever 15th straight loss
Rhyne Howard scored 20 points, Cheyenne Parker added 17 and the Atlanta Dream handed the Indiana Fever its 15th straight loss with a 91-81 victory on Wednesday night.
Atlanta (13-18) ended a four-game losing streak and moved into a three-way tie for seventh in the standings.
Rookie of the Month doing Rookie of the Year things 🤩💸<a href=”https://twitter.com/howard_rhyne?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@howard_rhyne</a> <a href=”https://t.co/9iT8ZFXYiw”>pic.twitter.com/9iT8ZFXYiw</a>
—@AtlantaDream
Atlanta led 64-34 early in the third quarter before Indiana battled back to get within single digits in the fourth. Indiana outscored Atlanta 28-13 in the third to get within 75-62 and started the fourth by scoring 15 of the first 22 points to make it 82-77 with 5:02 left. But the Dream scored seven straight points and led by at least nine points the rest of the way.
Aari McDonald added 13 points, Kristy Wallace scored 12 and Maya Caldwell had 10 for Atlanta. Howard scored 14 of her points in the first half before reaching 20-plus for the ninth time this season.
NaLyssa Smith scored 21 points for Indiana (5-28). Emma Cannon added a season-high 16 points and rookie Lexie Hull had a season-high 14 points, reaching double figures for just the second time this season.
Both teams were without their leading scorers. Tiffany Hayes left Atlanta’s last game on Saturday with an ankle injury suffered in the second quarter, and Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell is done for the season with a plantar fascia tear in her left foot.
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