The Los Angeles Sparks drew their largest home crowd in their 28-season history Friday evening for Caitlin Clark’s first game in California as a college or pro player, while college basketball’s all-time scoring leader won for the first time in her six WNBA games.
The former Iowa standout scored six of her 11 points in the final 2 minutes, 27 seconds on two 3-point shots, her only points of the second half, as the Indiana Fever overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to defeat the Sparks, 78-73, in front of a capacity crowd announced at 19,103 at Crypto.com Arena.
Clark had missed nine consecutive shots before making a 33-foot pullup 3-point shot with 2:27 to play to increase Indiana’s lead to 72-66.
The Sparks cut the lead to 73-71 with 1 minute left on rookie forward Cameron Brink’s 26-foot 3-point jump shot and guard Lexie Brown’s 15-foot pullup shot but Clark made a 29-foot 3-point pullup shot with 40.5 seconds left to give the Fever a 76-71 lead.
Indiana led by at least five for the rest of the game.
Clark made 4 of 14 shots, including 2 of 9 3-point shots. The two-time John Wooden Award winner as college basketball’s best female player had a game-high 10 rebounds and a team-high eight assists.
The top choice in April’s WNBA draft took two shots in the first quarter, made her first shot, a cutting layup, and missed her second, a 29-foot 3-point jump shot.
Clark began the second quarter by making a running layup, then missing her next four shots — a 28-foot step back 3-point shot, a 30-foot running pullup 3-point shot, a 6-foot pullup shot and a 24-foot 3-point jump shot.
Clark missed all her three shots in the third quarter — a layup, a 3-point 31-foot pullup 3-point shot and a 27-foot 3-point jump shot.
Clark missed her a 4-foot step back shot and a 33-foot step back 3-point shot in the fourth quarter before making the back-to-back 3-point shots.
The Fever led twice in the first half, 3-2 and 5-4, and trailed 22-15 at the end of the first quarter and 45-34 at halftime.
Indiana scored 11 consecutive points over the first four minutes of the third quarter, tying the score, 45-45, with center Aliyah Boston scoring five points and backup center Temi Fagbenle four.
Fagbenle’s 26-foot 3-point basket with 3:41 left in the third quarter gave the Fever its first lead, 50-48, since the first quarter, but the Sparks responded with six consecutive points, four by reserve guard Aari McDonald, and led for the rest of the quarter.
Indiana trailed 56-53 entering the fourth quarter and after a tie and two lead changes, took the lead for good on guard Kelsey Mitchell’s 3-point shot with 6:18 left that began an 8-2 run that gave it a 65-60 lead with 5:05 remaining.
Indiana led by at least two and as many as seven for the rest of the game.
Mitchell scored a game-high equaling 18 points to lead four Fever players in double figures. Boston and Fagbenle, who played her final college season at USC after spending the first three at Harvard, each added 17.
Center Dearica Hamby led the Sparks (1-3) with 18, forward Rickea Jackson added 16 off the bench and Brink, the second player chosen in April’s WNBA draft, 15.
The Sparks’ lone victory came Tuesday when they defeated the Washington Mystics, the lone winless team in the 12-team league, 70-68.