Tales of five games

Lynx make history:

Minnesota got their tenth consecutive road win and 13th regular-season victory by beating Phoenix, 78-60. It's a franchise best.

Blowouts:

The Sun annihilated the Liberty, 97-55.

The Dream dominated the Sparks from buzzer to buzzer. Final score: 92-59.

Close one:

The Mystics finally closed out a game by squeaking out a win over the Fever, 67-66. Newly-signed Shannon Bobbitt provided a spark off the bench, including making a crucial layup in the last minute of play.

Still winless:

The Storm upended the Shock, 86-73.

Sparks-Dream game quotes:

Atlanta Dream Head Coach Marynell Meadors

On putting together two dominant halfs tonight…

“Well I really think that was one of our goals, to play four quarters tonight. We’ve had a good first quarter, a good second quarter, a good third quarter and a good fourth but we haven’t put everything together. We’ve had two good quarters at times then other times we haven’t scored in the fourth quarter. We didn’t score a whole lot of points tonight in the fourth but we had a tremendous lead so I was really proud of everybody who made some really good contributions.”

Dream Forward Angel McCoughtry

On the team’s performance…

“This was a great one. LA is a great team. They only have one loss to Minnesota, and they beat some great teams. This is a good one for us, we really played well tonight.”

On the teams cohesiveness tonight…

“We played really well tonight. I don’t want to keep saying I’m surprised but I’m very pleased. I’m very proud of tonight.”

On her three-point shooting tonight (4 for 5 from three-point range)…

“That isn’t my game but I’ll tell you my little secret. Last night I shot a thousand shots, so I was ready

Los Angeles Sparks Head Coach Carol Ross

On what led to the low shooting percentage…

“I thought Atlanta’s defense lead to our low shooting performance tonight. Atlanta was tremendous on both ends of the court. They came out with a lot of focus and intensity, whereas we did not. That what happens where you’re not ready to roll.”

On the game plan for the second half…

“I was hoping coming out in the second half we would play hard, but we didn’t. Clearly I didn’t have this team ready to play. I think we lost this before we played it.”

Sparks Forward Candace Parker

Thoughts on the game…

“We got off to an absolutely slow start. It’s almost like we got punched in the face. We didn’t know what to do. Atlanta came out with a lot of aggression and energy whereas we didn’t. So then how to you counter that?"

On the Sparks’ defensive performance tonight:

“Obviously the score shows we didn’t do well defensively at all tonight. We gave up 92 points. So all together we didn’t do well offensively or defensively tonight. I think this is a game we definitely need to learn from but we also need to move on from this.”

On what they are going to take from this game…

“We need to come out with a lot of energy. We can’t start the way we did because it trickles down the rest of the game. We need to stay aggressive. I think our defense needs to dictate the way play offensively and not vice-versa.”