Sparks vs. Sun: Rae Burrell Scores 20 as Los Angeles Snaps Six-Game Losing Streak in 77-68 Win

Two nights earlier, the Los Angeles Sparks had given up 124 points to Atlanta in their own building. So when Saturday's game at crypto.com Arena turned into a mess of turnovers, an ejection and a late Connecticut surge, nobody on the Sparks' side was in a position to complain about style points.

Rae Burrell scored 20 points in front of 10,878 fans, and Los Angeles finally put six straight losses behind it by beating the Connecticut Sun 77-68. Los Angeles coughed it up 25 times and still won by nine, which might be the most Sparks sentence of the season. Three days after announcing her retirement, Nneka Ogwumike went for 11 points and 11 rebounds, her 131st career double-double.

Up 22, Down to Nine, and Nobody Relaxed

The Sparks started hot. An 8-0 run turned a 10-9 game into 18-9, and they finished the first quarter ahead 32-22, a number that looked even better after a sluggish second period. Connecticut chipped away at a 16-point deficit and scored the final eight points of the half, cutting the lead to 44-36 at the break.

The third quarter was the good version of Los Angeles. The Sparks made 9 of 12 shots while the Sun went 4 of 16, and by the end of the period it was 66-46. Connecticut's offense, which the AP identifies as the league's worst, looked exactly the part.

Then things got strange. Early in the fourth, Dearica Hamby was ejected after a boxing-out collision with Raegan Beers. As the AP described it, Hamby flung her right hand back and hit Beers in the jaw, no foul was called on the floor, and Beers went to the locker room before a review. The officials gave Hamby a flagrant 2 for unnecessary and excessive contact and assessed Beers a loose-ball foul.

Los Angeles still pushed on. An 8-0 run stretched the lead to 74-53, and Erica Wheeler's 3-pointer with 6:12 left made it 77-55. That turned out to be Los Angeles' last basket of the game. The Sun scored the next 13 points, with Gianna Kneepkens, Kennedy Burke and Saniya Rivers all getting to the rim, and Rivers' pull-up with 1:52 left made it 77-68. For a team that had been on a six-game skid, the final six minutes must have felt like watching a horror movie you've already seen. But Connecticut missed its last five shots, and the Sparks walked off with the win.

Burrell's Night, Ogwumike's Moment

Burrell was the best player on the floor. She shot 8 of 13 from the field and 2 of 5 from deep, and she filled in everywhere else with three steals and three blocks in 30 minutes. On a team that could not stop giving the ball away, she was the one player consistently making Connecticut pay at the other end.

Ogwumike's stat line was more workmanlike at 4-of-10 shooting, but all 11 of her rebounds came on the defensive end and she was a steadying presence in a game that kept threatening to get away. The double-double count, 131 and counting in a season she has said will be her last, is the kind of number that deserves a long ovation.

Wheeler matched her with 11 points on three 3s and added five assists. Hamby scored 10 on just two field-goal attempts before the ejection, going 6 of 8 at the line, and finished plus-19 in 21 minutes. Cameron Brink provided a different kind of whirlwind: seven points on 3-of-3 shooting, three assists, four turnovers and six fouls in 12 minutes. Ariel Atkins added six points and seven rebounds.

The Sun's Offense, and Its Absences

Rivers led Connecticut with 14 points off the bench along with four steals. Leila Lacan scored 13, Burke had 11 with four steals and three blocks, and Beers added eight points and seven rebounds. Connecticut played without Brittney Griner (knee) and Aaliyah Edwards (ankle).

The Sun's defense was actually excellent in one specific way. They collected 15 steals and turned Los Angeles' 25 turnovers into 30 points, per the AP. But they shot 35% from the field and 4 of 24 from 3, and even a defense that active can't overcome that. The Sparks give up 93.6 points a game, the AP noted, yet they kept Connecticut 11 points under its own scoring average.

Nine of 12, When It Counted

The third quarter. Connecticut had clawed back to eight at the half and had all of the momentum at the break. A 22-10 Sparks quarter on 9-of-12 shooting took the air out of Connecticut's comeback and built the cushion that ultimately survived the fourth-quarter scramble. Without it, that 13-0 run is a go-ahead run.

The Ugly, Useful Numbers

• 25: Sparks turnovers. They won anyway.
• 9 of 12 vs. 4 of 16: Third-quarter shooting, the game's decisive stretch.
• 40-30: Los Angeles' rebounding edge, with 36 of the Sparks' boards coming on defense.
• 8 of 18 vs. 4 of 24: Three-point shooting. Connecticut took six more 3s and made half as many.
• 13-0: The Sun's fourth-quarter run after falling behind by 22.

A Reset, Not a Renaissance

Los Angeles improves to 13-24 and 6-12 at home. Thursday's 124-88 loss to Atlanta was the low point of the skid, so a nine-point win, however ugly, is a useful reset. It was the Sparks' first win since Aug. 6 at Minnesota, and it also kept the Sun from sweeping the season series, with Connecticut having won the first two meetings. The Sparks stay home to face Atlanta on Monday, the third game of a four-game homestand.

Connecticut falls to 9-27, has lost two straight and gets a home game against Chicago on Tuesday.

Two Stop Signs and a Passing Grade

A six-game losing streak doesn't end because a team suddenly gets everything right. Sometimes it ends because one team commits 25 turnovers and the other one can't make enough shots to punish it. Think of it as the basketball version of passing a road test while running two stop signs. Burrell and the Sparks will take the license either way.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Injury news, the Hamby ruling and other context as reported by the Associated Press.