Rae Burrell highlights important learning curve amid career season

LOS ANGELES – After finding themselves down by 17 points late in the first half at home against the Washington Mystics, the Los Angeles Sparks rallied back in the second half to come away with an 88-82 win on Friday night. Helping lead the way as she done for most of this season, Rae Burrell scored 12 of her 15 points in the fourth quarter to seal the win for the Sparks.

The former first round pick missed only one shot (5-of-6) in the final period after going 1-of-6 through the first three quarters. After the Sparks’ win, Burrell acknowledged that her early performance could be chalked up to missing some shots she normally makes, but that her improvement in the fourth quarter was also due to her learning to adjust on the fly to how the defense is guarding her.

“I think just making the right reads, and sometimes I know if I’m short that sometimes it’s just a tweak that I need to make,” Burrell told a small group of reporters postgame. “Sometimes it’s not going into a body instead of absorbing the contact, going away from the contact. So I think just recognizing that as well cause I think that was some of my misses, some of the problems with my misses as well. There’s definitely tweaks in the game that I’m thinking about with those misses that I’m trying to correct.”

This season has been a career year for Rae Burrell, who has spent the entirety of her five seasons in the WNBA with the Sparks. The organization selected her with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2022 draft, and she’s arguably become the team’s most promising young player.

She’s appeared in 38 games this season, moving into a full-time starting role following Kelsey Plum’s injury and subsequent trade. She’s putting up a career-best 14.4 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists while shooting 46.6 percent from the field, 39 percent from the 3-point line and 79.1 percent from the free-throw line.

She reached her career-high in points with 28 back on Aug. 13 against the New York Liberty, a game in which the Sparks rallied back from a 28-point deficit, only to fall short in the end, but with Burrell putting on a similar second half performance.

For her, one of the biggest areas of growth she’s seen is being able to bounce back from a sluggish start here or there and rebound in big way rather than let it linger in her head.

“I think just my resilience. Just making the right plays as well even when my shots aren’t falling,” Burrell said. “I’m just happy I was taking the right shots and still making plays in any way that I can. And I’m still on the defensive end being aggressive as well. So I’m just proud of the decision-making that I’ve continued to show and my experience.”

The Sparks have four games left in the year, and then Burrell will hit restricted free agency in the offseason. It’s a good bet she’ll probably draw interest from opposing teams, but the organization should do everything in their power to keep her in a Sparks jersey.

The post Rae Burrell highlights important learning curve amid career season appeared first on ClutchPoints.