Arlington, TX – The Dallas Wings continue their home series as they welcome the 2016 WNBA Champions Los Angeles Sparks to College Park Center. This will be the first matchup of the 2017 season between both teams. This year, the Wings will go up against the Sparks four times. Twice at home and twice in Los Angeles.
AGAINST THE SPARKS
Friday night, the Wings will face western opponent, the Los Angeles Sparks. It will mark as the 54th time these two franchises will meet. Last season, the Sparks took the series at 3-0.
Skylar Diggins-Smith had a stellar game on June 28, 2016 in Los Angeles. The all-star guard scored a high of 29 points and led the team in total assists with seven.
TEAM STATS
The Wings will host their fourth home game this season, and face their second western conference opponent while playing on their home court.
At home the Wings are 1-2.
On 5/30 vs the Indiana Fever the Wings recorded their largest victory of the season, taking their first win at home with a score of 89-62.
The Wings are in the middle of a three game home series, that will end on June 11 against the Minnesota Lynx. This week’s series is the longest home series for the team this season.
DISHING OUT
The combination of four Wings players (Skylar Diggins-Smith, Karima Christmas-Kelly, Kaela Davis and Saniya Chong), have combined for a total of 84 assists this season, averaging 10.5 assists per game.
Skylar Diggins-Smith leads the way for the Wings in assists. She is currently averaging 5.5 assists per game with a total of 44. Against Minnesota on 5/20, she hit a season high dishing out eight. She moved up this week one spot amongst leaders in the league to fourth.
Karima Christmas-Kelly and Saniya Chong have recorded a combined of 28 assists. Overall, they have 15 (Christmas-Kelly) and 13 (Chong) respectively, averaging 3.5 assists per game. Davis joins the group with 12 overall.
GLORY’S GLORIOUS
Glory Johnson has remained in her groove from last season. In the eight games played, she has recorded two double-double, with the most recent one occurring against Indiana this past Saturday. Against the Fever, she recorded both season highs in points and boards with 22 points and 13 rebounds. She hit her first double-double in the Wings’ season opener with 12 points and 11 rebounds. She remains in the top five amongst league leaders in boards at fourth. This season she is averaging 8.8 rebounds per game with a total of 70.
MILESTONE SEASON
Karima Christmas-Kelly notched a new career high against Indiana on May 30. The veteran recorded a total of 27 point, defeating her current high of 24 points, that she recorded in July of 2015. She also set a new career high in field goals made with 10, that also occurred against her former team, Indiana on May 30. Christmas-Kelly leads the team in scoring averaging 13.6 points per game. Her performance rate that night was at 40.2, the highest in any WNBA and NBA game for a player. The average rate is at 15.0, and all-star at 30.0
Glory Johnson recorded a personal milestone recording her 1000th total rebound vs Indiana on May 30. Coming into the season, she was 44 boards shy of the mark, and just eight walking into this past Tuesday’s game. She is the second Wings player on the team that has recorded such a mark, along with Courtney Paris who has 1350, and is fifth in franchise history among rebound leaders.
Karima Christmas-Kelly and Skylar Diggins-Smith scored their 1500th WNBA point against San Antonio on May 25. It was the second time in league history a veteran duo reached the same multiple-of-500 career points milestone with more than 1000 career points in the same game. The last time this occurred was in August 9, 2011 (MIN at PHO) when MIN teammates Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen both reached 3000 career point. It is also the first time in W history that two teammates with hyphenated last names reached the milestone in the same game.
WATCH US WORK
This weekend’s games will be televised on the team’s broadcast partner FOX Sports Southwest, with both games being shown on FSSW+.
The Wings will be holding special theme nights this weekend. Friday, it will be “Celebrando Las Wings” night, where the team will have special Latin features throughout the night. Sunday afternoon, the team will honor a basketball legend, Nancy Lieberman, who served as head coach for the Detroit Shock, where the team originated from. A special ceremony will take place to honor her tributes to the game of basketball and Dallas-Fort Worth community. For tickets to this special day, fans can visit dallaswings.com and type in the code NANCYLDW17 to purchase $10 tickets.