Sue Bird Provides Advice for Cameron Brink, LA Sparks

In the latest episode of Straight to Cam with former Stanford Cardinal Cameron Brink and co-host Dearica Hamby, they welcomed WNBA legend Sue Bird onto the show for a conversation that ranged from Bird’s career, to getting parodied on social media, and everything in between.

The most interesting part of the program came at about the 34 minute mark, when Hamby asked the Seattle Storm icon for some guidance for her team, the Los Angeles Sparks.

“We’re struggling in those third quarters. How do you get your team to be more locked in, or [have more] sense of urgency in the third quarter? We’re warming up, it’s not like we’re not warming up.”

The Sparks are 4-8 on the year, and there have been games this season where they have managed just seven and nine points coming out of the break. For the most part, however, the scores are fairly close, but the Sparks have been on the losing end of third quarters in eight of their 12 games this season, which exactly lines up with their record.

While they have lost some third quarters and still pulled out a win, it would appear as though the team wants to make sure they’re bringing the energy out of halftime, which could lead to more competitive basketball games, and also a few more wins.

Bird’s advice?

“One of the things that we did, who knows what year it was, but we decided ‘hey we gotta get out there by five minutes.’ It was a grind. People last minute always have to pee. Last minute, go get a snack. But we would get out there by five minutes, and we would do layup lines.

“I think everything is mental, so you probably just have to figure out or try new things. Try different things. The truth is, it’s mental. Maybe it’s for the first two minutes, go crazy on defense. Get exhausted.”

For those that are set to play the Sparks in the coming days, Hamby said that she’d been thinking about suggesting that LA just traps everything for a couple of minutes. “Not to tell our secrets, but like, to just set the tone of aggresiveness.”

Bird also said they should tell the coaches to make things interesting with a side bet, like first three stops or first three buckets gets the winnings.

Hamby then said that when they played the Chicago Sky, “We did a little side bet one game. We were playing Chicago, and we knew Angel [Reese] likes to get offensive boards, so it was like first person to give up the o-board has to tell the coach that they talk too much.” Hamby ended up losing that one.

One factor that will certainly help the club on both the offensive and defensive ends will be the return of Cameron Brink, which is supposed to happen some time in June. At least, that was the latest update. The Sparks haven’t been terribly forthcoming with updates on a Brink return for a few weeks now.

The former Cardinal tore her ACL in June of last season and has been on the road to recovery since.